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dS 



POCAHONTAS 



BY 



JOHN EDWARD HOWELL. 




NEW YORK: 

PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR, 

MDCCCLXIX. 



f 



-^s ' 

.^1^^- 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the j-ear 1867, by 

J0H:N' EDWARD HOWELL, 

In tlie Clerk's Office of tlie District Court of the United Stat&s for iho 

Southern District of New York. 



THE TROW k SMtTH 

BOOK MANUFAVTUBlXa COMPAXT, 

46, 48, 50 Greene Street, N. Y. 



Eye tlie great Sun and smile, if he begin 
To vaunt how many orbs to him are leal, 
If thou, no planet, dost a charm conceal, 
Spheres, for sprent atoms, holy sparks within. 
O Heart, make freemen of us all who bleed — 
What other quest were royal, but to die, 
If, that we love and dare to deify 
Bestride the pole- wind to escape our need? — 
Ah ! Love, not less a passion, seek delight 
In rearing hearts, stunned by the overthrow 
Of hopes, we more esteem, the less we know, 
Duped by the heart we banish far from sight, 
Opprest by doubt, if prayer for it be right. 

"Who doubts his heart, doubts on, till quoted wise, 
Who trusts it once doth after smirk its fool — 
In vain, a God, or precept from the Skies, 
To crown the head the mightier heart to rule. 
Look, yon, and mark Ambition as ?he rears 
Much envy sun- ward, and again behold 
A woman spoil a monarch with her tears; 
Afraid of fame, if his, a bosom cold 
To her beseeching look and melting heart. 
O Man, how fitly thou to die for her ! 
O Woman, how divine the gift, or art. 
Or charm exalts him, erst, thy worshipper, 
To him thy lips to vespers soon prefer ! 
1 



"Her blood! lier blocd ! " — and dies by Lis own band. 

She fled erewbile, now, blushing brisk return, 

Sees bis Mood bubbling to tlie ravening sand, 

And dies too soon a plea to live to learn. 

"What lover thrice looks down a murderous sea 

And Dot pursues the agonizing shriek? 

Ahead, so ])rudeiit, it could pause to be, 

Outlives the fame bud roared behind it — weak. 

Blood blossoms white in the immortal rose 

Thickens the far empyrean with perfume, 

And, if perchance, a breeze towards us blows, 

"VVe catch ibe scent in tainted nature's room. 

And plant tbe rose sball in our absence bloom. 

Is Love amiss? Ah ! if we seek it here. 

What heart but hides a wound or bares a scar? 

As dark the dole sits mute behind a tear 

As sweet the smile pursues tbe eye afar. — 

"What lyre shall boast a string from Sappho's lost, 

May air a secret, silent on the cheek. 

How love, so cheap, we rate it at no cost. 

Beggars who buy — to prove the passion weak ! 

Ah ! Love, all faces peer into tbine own, 

A few acquit thy conscience of a lie. 

Not one unveils the half bis beart has known, 

A host embrace thee, turn to stone, or die, 

O Vestal, cast, unpitied, down the Sky! 

What do sweet-bearts but rail at sordid brains, 
Tho' impious love be sold at every stall? — 
Who looks the grave, looks fair, witb swollen gains 
And these survive to fill a void — bow small ! 
O cruel band, forbear, forbear tby touch — 
Nay, be it said no more, two bearts do wed, 
Tho' holy men voucb for it ne'er so much, 
If lips may lie and turn no faces red. 
And vengeance baulks at him who gave a bride 
To an alliance, hers to break or die, 
Whom life pretentious freezes at bis side, 
Who, if a lover, cruel as his eye. 
Quick dancing o'er ber charms, so lustfully 1 
2 



Who beg for bread ask not the host for wine — 

As starving hearts albeit coarsely fed, 

By cunning hunger crumbs do so refine, 

No sweets so dainty as when beggars wed ! — 

See, for what outlay Love expects return, 

High as lier c;ii>tle turret builds her fall, 

By spurning that a beggar dare not spurn, 

By blessing that no beggar doth at all. — 

'Wei-Q Love a sea, and did we all leap in. 

How many, think, should safely reach the shore? 

Yet, "we surprised, not winning hearts wiio win, 

A-^k, " What is lacking ? " and the void deplore. 

While, all we lack have beggars running o'er. 

Last morn, its breath o'er all the garden sweet. 

Lewd winds to-day, hoot at its wretchedness: 

A child had wept, its altered mien to greet. 

Had kissed it, too, to make its pallor less. 

Ah ! did-st thou pluck the whitest flower that blows, 

And hide it in thy bosom for its scsnt. 

Thou hadst, to-day, the incense of a rose, 

To-morrow, what? a rose, its blossom spent? 

Thou hadst the secret Love unbosoms last, 

As if 'twere shameful, hearts should tell their own, 

How e;ich has bled to clasp the other fast : 

Speak valiant Heart, ere Love escaping lone, 

Wander a ghost, to moonlight lovers known. 

Tpar off the mask? Ah! no. preserve it, still. 
With doubtful kiss let lover lover greet — 
The Sphinx still [)uts a riddle — blood to spill, 
Since hearts throb riddles by each conscious beat. 
Then, are we mad who beg each other's eyes 
For sweet " Good morrows," as if smiles were dear ? 
If men, what men, if we affect surprise. 
How smiles do fade as we draw liopeful near, 
A shadow, thick as thunder-clouds do cast. 
Fallen, remaining where our eyes did rest ? — 
Ache, foolish heart dost dream of love to last 
Beyond the flower blooms on its mother's breast — 
And Death insists to love a year is best. 
3 



Yon lark sails not to heaven to find a mate, 

But lords the sky to prove his mettle true — 

A bird were ba?e to courage underrate. 

To Love's ripe kisses Cossar's sword is due! — 

Not pounds buy more than e'en thin farthings buy. 

"Who ever clasps a heart, except a fool, 

And thinks it his, for that lie bid so high ? 

A lean, shrewd purse had taught him by what rule 

Love acts a farce to veil her secret well : 

As with a hand she weds a heart she spurns, 

"What time her breast doth with an amour swell, 

And as her step towards her palace turns. 

The secret's out — loud o'er her forehead burns ! 

There are who wed,, pay but a farthing down, 
And promise Love a thousand crowns anon. 
Yet, miser-like dole out a single crown, 
Lament it, lost — God's image just struck on ! 
Why Love turns pale, slips off the hateful ring, 
Turns from her bridal, well remembers one. 
Pledged her his heart and with it every thing, 
Dreams he still loves her — wakes and shame is done, 
Ask not, who vote true marriage down and raise 
A tempest of applause when such do wed 
Vow hoard for hoard and give their hearts the praise 
Of words their lips to God avert have said 
His eye, and both had left the altar — dead ! 

O, could we tear the rainbow from the cloud. 
And cast the cloud adrift to face the storm ! 
Yet, what were life to make a hero proud ? ■ 
With idle spear, with shrunk, distempered form, 
He shrieks — " Dear Horrors, thrust a spear at me I " 
So, were Love sweet to heart, to eye, to ear. 
As constant as the God we curse and flee. 
This yet were wanting — how to make it clear, 
Love is our master ere the slave we need ; 
By doubt, lip prest to lip, eye searching eye. 
As two hearts burst — for hearts too lean to bleed. 
Swear by no blush — than not, 'twere best to die 
By Love's own hand, to kiss her in the sky. 
4 



Doth Love owe thee aod dare decline to pay ? 
God is her surety— thou dost surely err : 
Thy inem'ry must have bolted yesterday, 
"When thou didst, hide rare treasures had of her. 
Display thy Jioard — thou liasc of gain so iiincli, 
A thousand crowns thy greed has reckoned one 
Thou ai t her debtor, and all we are such, 
"Who by a vow expect to hold her, won. 
Thy lips yet fnigrant with her kis=es, smile 
On fair deceit and bre;ik it to the day — 
Still pure as heaven her kiss, thy touch is vile, 
Thou, a pale bankrupt, pressing Love to pay 
Thrice o'tr the debt has turned her tresses gray. 

O Maiden, hid no diver down the sea 

For pearls to strew thy bosom, r.ot afsir 

A heart is throbbing, if with life, with thee, 

A gem of livelier tint than yonder s^tar. 

O, what a prize to eye and rail it thine. 

And ere thieves snatch it, hide within thy brensti 

Now smile, thou mayst, at every price the mine 

Proffers to tliee for that thou lovest best : 

Thine eyes do sparkle with im unwont light, 

Thy heart is reeling with right roy.'d cheer, 

And thou, a victor, hast a victor's right 

To whisper courage in the captive's ear. 

Content to die, to victor least appear, 

"Who cries " I've gold enough ! " doth blush "I lie ! " 
Too much a little, none at all were best. 
Did Love fill half unfilled in every breast, 
Love that first fills find then o'erflows the sky. 
Lo ! there she stands nnd shivers — not with cold, ^ 
Now, wrings her hands and looks to heaven for aid: 
Done fearing scorn, of what were she afraid, 
"Who yields to one who stops her mouth with gold ? 
Kow, see her sniil-, as every pi-ce she rings, 
I's weight and coinage notes and hoards it well : 
HeYiceforth t!ie heart shall sooner burst than tell 
AVhat hateful secret such a horror flings 
O'er feast and wine — Love swooning as she sings. 
5 



Love liJith a fault she aired when Eve was yoimg, 

By curious glance, to anger him afield, 

AVhose liearr. if true, is cer^ain to be stung, 

And for a doubt may to a folly yie'd. 

Pluck out thine eye if still it sees a stain 

Where rests thy head, so conscious there is none: 

Thou knovvest well it could not there remain, 

And not eaoh pulse confess the e^vil done — 

No lieait throbs love that once has pillowed shame, 

The pul-e no shame outlives it straight ignores, 

S eeps in lewd kisses one of guileless fame, 

And thro' the eye its lust the Town explores 

For shame so shameless shame it nigh restores. 

What heart confessing to another heart, 
But most; denies vvhac most it doth reveal, 
By the exhaustive industry of art, 
Cliarged to bear lightly all the lips conceal? 
Tho' by tie law of h)ve, we simply die, 
For one infraction, who shall dare survive 
Oiie breach, by many may the law defy. 
So potent life that doth by terror thrive ! 
O Heart, beat on, forgetful thou hast lo^t, 
The living laugh tho' all their sires be dead, 
Whose vagrant dust by idle whirlwinds tost 
Compels the tear late o'er their follies shed — 
O Heart, beat on, till joy to be hath fled. 

" O shame! O shame ! " — whereat we all do hiss : 
For why, we ask not, so incensed are we — 
Yet, 'twas a wife returned a husband's kiss, 
And a false eye swore to her infamy. 
Vomit the morning thou hard-visaged night! 
If this be day why yet the anxious eye, 
Demanding Heaven as it were out of sight, 
The ray it sees by battling down the sky? 
O clear broad light no evil may behold 
An 1 live t' escape, flash on each wedded rair, 
Yet, purge our eyes that not a lip be bold 
To charge a fault, caught by the virtuous fair, 
Half prompts the shame by doubt assevered there. 
6 



The culprit flies — ^Lis guilt is at his heels, 

The deed is scarlet on her conscious cheek, 

Who, not a widow, as a widow feels, 

Yet, as a wife, her secret — death to speak. 

She most believes and most denies his shame, 

She stoutly bears what Atlas could not bear: 

A wife no more, pride takes her wedded name, 

A listening spectre, silent everywhere. 

How much she dreads the curious eye that peers 

From covert, nook or casement at his guilt ! 

E'en in a laugh her startled fancy hears, 

" She loves the wretch my brother's blood hath spilt," 

And by her love his scaflTold high is built. 

O Sire, confess — or by the rack and wheel, 
Thou slialt, the alchemy turns to true gold 
That, by our passions wrought to toughest steel. 
So young thy heart, thy voice is not yet old, 
Nor careful yet thy step — and thou dost smile 
On her, whose hand thou givest as a bride 
Much astliou didst on her, thy bride erewhile, 
"Who ere the mother proved her — at thy side, 
Bold as a prophet, " Yea," to Love cried " Yea." 
How culture Love the oak and not the vine? 
At this, he spake — ''Love hath no yesterday, 
Would die to win and live to power decline 
And shall to Love, all worlds for love, resign." 

Ho ! doubt begone ! thy lurking-jjlace is found 
Behind the blush, the tear, the smile, the sigh, 
Thon when the oath and ring two hearts have bound, 
rii'st not so far as never to come nigh. 
Avannt — bepjone! — revisit not in dreams 
Yon woman's heart long cradled in stout arms: 
Thou dost a hero make so weak he seems 
A child, to fly the face no child alarms. 
O, where the heart fears nothing but to fear 
It loves too little to be mailed complete ? 
■Or, where the heart inVites a rival near 
To slay the feud no battle may defeat — 
Both glad of life as flowers the sun to greet ? 
7 



Sweet to the eye and to the heart how dear, 
Ber, by our foibles proved the wife the more, 
Not to her heart the Heaven she hopes so near 
As one, has proved his passion o'er and o'er. 
ITot in some royal garden, but afar, 
By drifting snows a queenly floweret bleeds — 
Smiles sweetly on the polar ice and star, 
Thrives, now it breathes the kindlier air it needs. 
Hearts are yet shut and hearts for aye shall be 
De:id to all mirth bnt laughter, bong and wine : 
Ilenrts are, such shall be, one may throb in thee 
Holds not a pulse except it be divine. 
But of the Tempter — not of God, nor thine. 

'Tis frightful Love still climbs some battlement, 
To leap the sheerer past the doubt we dread : 
Or, when wsth wrecks the shore is most besprent, 
"Wails, by his locks — " 'Tis he," and joins him, dead. 
Yet, 'tis so beautiful for love to die, 
We dare the sea, essay the last abyss. 
To well sustain the law preserves the sky, 
By frailer act than love confest amiss. 
Ah! we who boast, is reason well or ill? 
Had we been wiser had our hearts been heads ? 
More fitly fed if we our hearts might fill 
"With drops the sky in proof of virtue sheds — - 
No marriage true, but as the spirit weds? 
8 



POCAHONTAS. 



POOAHOK"TAS. 



I. 

O PITIFUL enchantment — outward grace ! 

Passion still turns to rend herself anew, 
Consumed by her own fires, and finds no place 

To enter and repose, save in the true, 
The beautiful, the good, that will no form 

To overwhelm the senses, but retire 

Within the heart — ^in sunshine and in storm 

To kindle there the heaven of true desire. 
1* 



10 POCAHOin^AS. 

11. 
Hers, holy love, less human than divine, 

Accepting khidly all her torturing throes, 
If with her heart-strings she may still entwine 

Fast with her own the heart she early chose 
Heroic wife, who, from the early morn 

Seeks the high noon of love, and poises there ; 
Feels with her offspring her own life reborn, 

Faints — yet has joy a seraph could not spare. 

III. 

Stifle the thought shall leave a stain behind; 

Crime but reveals the evil that we know; 
The eagle's wing, not the compelling wind 

Topples the glacier to the vale below; 
And from a spark the town to ashes turns. 

So, if a shadow fall across thy fame. 
Or conscious guilt upon thy forehead burns, 

Oceans were vain to purge away thy shame. 



POCAHONTAS. 1 1 

IV. 

Passion, T7hose promise blushes from the cheek, 

Pours from the eye, and softly whispers love, 
Is but the blossom ; if the fruit ye seek. 

The vine, with ripened clusters, thrives above. 
Exotic here, frosts wither and winds fade 

The tender plant ; but in its native skies 
Desire is not, and love is undecayed. 

The sum of all the heavenly charities. 

V. 

Yet is it true that in a savage heart 

The noble passion slumbers? that a flame 
Pure as the glow a seraph feels may start 

To shame her sister's love, and blaze the fame 
Of Pocahontas, and the state she saved 

From strait, and blood, and famine, by her love ? 
Life to the Briton, all his fortunes craved, 

If sent of God, led by a glance, to move 



12 POCAHONTAS. 

An Indian maid, with pity or desire. 

Common the head and heart of all the race, 
Common the dream of hope and one the fire, 

To light the eye, to kindle o'er the face, 
"Where Nature, will no graces save her own, 

Accepts as true the modesty of Eve, 
As where Art glosses and avows alone 

A blush for arms, her conquest to achieve. 



I. 

Hail ! love of woman, chaste and true. 
Divinely touched, as is the dew 
Distilling softly from the skies. 
To bless the ground whereon it lies ; 
Or touched as incense, to arise, 
Grateful to heaven for sacrifice, 
From the dear altar thou hast laid, 
No curious glance shall e'er invade. 



POCAHONTAS. 13 

Whence prayer, thougli silent, breaks more loud 

Than thunder bursting from the cloud ; 

"Where tears in silence swiftly flow, 

No ostentation in their woe ; 

Where breathes unuttered soft desire, 

Translated, ere its sacred fire, 

Unfanned by passion, must expire ; 

Or, stronger than a unicorn, 

The heavenly passion, newly bom. 

Wakes, like a lion in his lair, 

Snuffing disaster in the air. 

To loved ones sweetly sleeping there. 

Stirs then, O woman, in thy breast. 

Love, wholly human, yet divine, 
Blest, as it makes another blest, 

Heart wholly anowering to thine ; 
True to thyself in every clime, 
The same in late and early time, 
Thy forehead, be it white as snow, 
Cheeks with the breaking morn aglow ; 



14 POCAHONTAS. 

Or be thy countenance less fair, 
With dusky shadows settled there, 
Thou hast an undivided throne, 
And rulest queen of hearts alone. 

II. 

The Garden envied thy perfume 

Above the odor of its flowers, 
And in thy flight snatched off thy bloom, 

Last trace of heaven to fly its bowers ; 
Yet sped enough with thee, to scent 

The desert ages with thy breath. 
To rally life from banishment. 

To wave afar the steps of death. 
Iladst thou cast all behind thee then, 

"We had thee now but half restored ; 
Thy heart withdrew, to bloom again, 

And love her rare delight afford ; 
Thy heart, though sundered heaven of guile, 

A flood of regal charities, 



POCAHONTitS^. . 15 

Thy face to lieaven returned its smile, 

A broken mirror of the skies, 
Swayed as the tides caress the deep. 

The sluggish ocean of his soul,* 
Who gave thee tears enough to weep 

A sea, and it were half the whole. 
With ministries of love profound. 

With hope that hoped his late reform, 
Thou wert as if a victim bound, 

The prey of fire, the sport of storm, 
Thy torturer knelt before thy feet. 

Or, fawning grimly by thy side. 
How less the lord of Eden meet 

Companion of his charming bride, 
O woman down the aeres cast. 

As though of lust thou wert the toy 
That wooed thee first, and scorned thee last, 

Yet half thy heart could not destroy. 
To what a thicket for a fold 

Wert thou, a lamb,, by tempests driven ? 



16 POCAHONTAS. 

In ■what a furnace was thy gold 

Set free, to be re-stamped of heaven? 
From what an agony to rise 

And snatch the chaplet from his head, 
Who cast thee soulless from the skies, 

And left thee wounded as for dead ? 
Thou hast a record in thy heart, 

Stamped on thy brow, to stand forever, 
To challenge God to act His part. 

Thy wrongs to blink, to pardon never. 

III. 
Who laid thy throne, and to thy hand 

Committed empire o'er the heart ? 
Proved thee by sin to rise and stand 

The eminence of grace thou art ? 
Strung thee by travail to survive 

Thyself in offspring nearer God, 
Born of thy stripes, and scorn to thrive 

By peace, the blossom of His rod ? 



POCAHOXTAS. 1 7 

He saw thee weep, yet fled afar, 

As if thou Tvert not still His own, 
Or hid behind a cloud or star, 

And wept thee weeping, quite alone. 
If He return, He shall not weep. 

But in the Lamb surpass the God, 
Shall cast the demon down the steep, 

And wing an angel from a clod — 
Permit thee audience with the skies. 

Above communion thou hast lost, 
Give thee rare favor in his eyes. 

Who would not stop to count the cost, 
As he made hideous with his shame, 
The scroll celestial with thy fame. 

IV. 

Thy throne : — thou art a woman now, 

Diviner by thy fall ; and wear 
The crown long fallen from thy brow, 

And gather thy dishevelled hair, 



18 ; POCAHONTAS. 

Thy frenzied eyes forsake their glare, 
And look the look of Eve, and feel 

Thou second mother of the race, 
Art charged the breach of sin to heal, 

And high in heaven thy record trace. 



V. 

Be thou a child to sweep a chord 

Of heavenly rapture to our ears ; 
Y/hat shall be loved or what abhorred 

Ours, by thy smiles or by thy tears. 
Thy youth the blush of breaking love. 

Whereon we look and live or die. 
When all the minstrels of the grove. 

Thy song would snatch, and theu's would fly ; 
What now, if lust or bribe constrain 

Thee to betrayal of thy heart ? 
Canst thou be woman, and refrain 

From love, a miracle of art ? 



POCAHOIO'AS. ". 19 

I. 

O motlier, blusli, if round thy child, 
With cheeks of morn, and eyes so mild, 
As if just as an angel smiled, 

She caught the fire, 

Without desire, 
Of his soft eyes on every feature — 
O blush, if round so fair a creature, 
The serpent coil, his arts to teach her. 

II. 

The maid has not the child outgrown, 
The rose is but the bud full-blown ; 
She still is thine — thine, not her own, 
As in the past, 
» Her arms be cast 

Ai'ound thee, mother, fast forever, 
A hold her heart shall sunder never, 
The treason of thy heart must sever. 



20 POCAHONTAS. 

III. 

The leaf so much absorbs thine eye, 
Dost thou forget, must fade and die ? 
That what remains is of the sky 
Of rarer grace 
Than her sweet face ? 
Then, by the heaven you hope of winning, 
Keep her as pure as life's beginning, 
And, if she fall, be hers the sinning. 

IV. 

Thine ears had tingled, were her name 

Ill-spoken by the lips of fame ; 

Thy heart had burst, stung by her shame ; 

Yet all were due 

To thee untrue, 
Unless thou hast exhausted teaching, 
And ended precept by beseeching, 
Vainly the angel in her reaching. 



POCAHONTAS. ^ 21 

V. 

Cheap — words shall wound, but said in jest, 
Dear — the rebuke would leave us blest. 
And scouted love still loves us best ; 

Such, mother, thine, 

A love divine. 
Profound and boundless as the ocean. 
Its calm, yet wanting its commotion. 
An overflow of Christ's emotion. 

VI. 

O mother, blush, if thou art bold. 
To barter love for place or gold. 
To yield a warm heart to a cold ; 

A mystery 

Of shame in thee 
Thou shalt not wipe out by long praying, 
By frequent alms and penance paying, 
Nor by the soul herself betraying. 



22 " POCAHONTAS. 

TIT. 

Young heart, wed not, or wed tliat one 
Whose love responds to tMne alone, 
For weal or woe 'tis nobly done. 
When ye do wed — 
Time shall have fled 
Full swiftly, as your day declining, 
Shall leave no cause for your repining, 
As love, like wine, goes on refining. 

VIII. 

To wed, except as stars do wed, 
Setting a crown on cither's head. 
To brighten as its light is shed, 

Were to forsake 

The heart, to take 
The aspick as love's true election, 
Or, spurning such a base selection, 
To bear a life for life's correction. 



POCAHONTAS. 23 

IX. 

To wed, except as hearts Trho wed 
A heayen, though none be overhead, 
And hold it, when all else has fled, 

Were to prefer 

Grey lust, to her. 
Who is desire from lewdness shrinking ; 
To rise, when lust's last flame is sinking, 
Health to the future blithely drinking. 

X. 

To wed domain, to wed a throne. 

His hand, who boasts it half thine own, 

His heart, to thee but darkly known. 

Were with thine eyes 

To see a prize 
Above all worth, by thee accounted. 
Knelt— spumed — to wed a miser, mounted. 
Still clutching gold, to pleasure counted. 



24 POCAHONTAS. 

XI. 

Wed, and from feasting to the dance, 

Bid nurth far into day advance, 

And Tvake, at last roused from thy trance, 

To find the cup 

Has swallowed up 
The bubble on its surface swimming, 
All joy it held for thee a-brimming, 
Joy, ere it sunk, the stars was dimming. 

xn. 
Wed, and be joyous in the less, 
Denote its shadow happiness. 
And feel for love love's own distress; 

Let such as may 

Cry yea or nay — 
Thou knowest better than all living, 
What hoards of wealth thy heart is giving, 
With what return to thee arriving. 



POCAHONTAS. 25 

xm. 
Accursed gold ! accursed lust ! 
Like serpents trailing in the dust, 
Fawning, as the old serpent must. 

When Eve swept by 

So sinlessly; 
Strike, with a fang that life shall sever, 
These bantlings of the old deceiver, 
Bury thepa deep, and name them never. 

xrv. 

Enough — enough, and far too long, 

The beck, the pledge, of smile and song, 

To cover the advance of wrong, 

As not aware, 

Who lay a snare. 

Entice a guest who comes to tarry, 

TiU when the heart beats most unwary, 

Away the pearl of life to carry. 
2 



26 POCAHONTAS. 

XV. 

Too few, too few, tlie scouted few, 
Wlio will to v/omanliood be true. 
And sup on scorn for lionor due 
. To proud dissent 
From blandisliment, 
Against a world their motto flying, 
A world such, eminence decrying, 
A world were better for less lying. 

VI. 

Cornelia's jewels sparkle yet: 
So, mother, if thou hast not set 
A son or daughter in thy crown, ^ 
Its proudest jewel, fling it down. 
Thou art no mother, till thy pride 

Leans on thy son, as man's renown, 
Leans on thy daughter as a bride, 

The eminence of womanhood, 



POCAHOI^TAS. 27 

Or wed, or nestling at thy side, 

The crown of beautiful and good ; 
No mother — does thy heart most cherish 

Some world beyond the world — affection ; 
Hast floods of tears if that shall perish, 

Yet not an eye for close inspection 
Of this ; to grow as growing old. 
Precious, beyond a mass of gold, 
A firmament were vain to hold. 

VII. 

O had Cornelia lived to-day, 

Her jewels then had cast a ray, 

Serene, like that of Washington, 

August, like that of Wellington, 

Benign, a flood of joy to all, 

Provoked to rise above their fall. 

Had she a daughter for a gem. 

The choicest in her diadem, 

Kot one, but many rays of light 

Had filled the heart with strange delight, " 



28 POCAHONTAS. 

Divine as lifts tlie cross above 
The bacchanal of Yenus' love. 

VIII. 

What be thy tresses, soft and fair ? 
What thy red lip, and sparkling eye ? 

Silver outlustres golden hair, 
Lips, with petitions for a sigh, 

Glance pelting shame, lest it come nigh, 

Mock the illusion known as love. 
These be, O mother, from thy vow 

Its record cast thee from above, 
A halo for a mother's brow. 

To speak the name of mother well, 
Without a lisp ; to feel the glow 
But a true mother's heart shall know. 
Be thine, when thou shalt height attain 
That nothing higher shall remain ; 

Till then, at school, to learn to spell 
A name, if gold, no gold were finer, 



POCAHONTAS. 29 

A name, than whicli, none is diviner, 

Oh ! haste, oh ! haste, to speak it well ! 
A mother — were a mother true 

To Nature, we had Ere again; 
"Wiser to clench her weakness too. 

One heaven would have, and one to gain : 
A mother— were a mother found 

In all the earth, the skies had bowed 
To her, obeisance to the ground. 

Her, a stray seraph, had avowed. 

iz. 

A vision, we may never see, 

But kindling, gracious, to the lyre — 
Or when much toil, the senses flee, 

And hearts embrace long-hoped desire — 
Yet, vision, we would ever seek, 

Tho' it shall fly as we pursue. 
And such — be voted mad or weak, 

As breathe— a woman should be true 



30 POCAHOJSTAS. 

To womanliood :— a fault so stale, 
To breathe it — turns a woman pale ! 

X. 

Ascend tlie woman from the maid 

And sweep a sphere thou hast not jet ; 
And as the charms of nature fade 

From heaven the flight from Eden get ; 
Get back thy smile, if heaven permit, 

Get back thy grace without a name, 
Grace well may on an angel sit. 

That scouts the throat and eye of fame, 
So hiding all thou art within 

The wife, the mother, sister, child. 
Thy first ascent and last begin. 

Whither man met thee first and smiled. 
Thou art too weak ? thou art so strong 

An angel were no match for fhee ; 
And thou hast faith, and hope, and song. 

For strength o'er all infirmity ; 



POCAHONTAS. 31 

Yet of thyself thou art but part, 

Yet but a segment of a sphere ; 
Hast but discovered half thy heart, 

Half the compassion of thy tear ; 
Yet hast but wept above thy grave. 

Trodden its flowers beneath thy feet ; 
A goddess crowned, yet chained a slave. 

With scarce a heaven for last retreat ; 
Command the heavens, and they shall fall, 

With strength to bear thee on, still on, 
With wrath thy cowards to appall. 

With charms enough for graces gone. 

XI. 

On — 'tis thy mission to precede. 

To follow man ; the lot is thine 
In his thy destiny to read. 

And thou canst make them both divine. 
Have now from Christ thy gonfalon. 

He dipped it in His blood, and rose, 



32 POCAHONTAS. 

Cheers thee as thou dost "bear it on, 

Reserves thee heaven for last repose ; 
Thine ointment, did not dare His head, 

He yet remembers in the skies, 
Thine eye, that wept him once as dead, 

That followed Him to Paradise, 
Is fixed forever on Him there. 

He casts a ray from out His own, 
He quite descends to enter where, 

Thy heart, a pulse of His, has shown — 
By Him, reborn as for command, 

Him for thy leader ; high thy crest, 
And in the darkness grasp His hand, 

And weary, slumber on His breast. 
A stench is all remains of him 

Who flayed the land and stormed the sea, 
Dreamed, when all other names grew dim. 

His own should stand by infamy. 
Let thy ambition rise sublime 

As his fell short the aim of man ; 



POCAHONTAS. 33 

Be thine the future of all time, 

So thou shalt rise where life began, 

And, perfumed with the gales of heaven, 
And warmed into a seraph's glow, 
Descending — ^heaven shall fall below, 
And man thy heart at last shall know, 
Shall weep a sea for every blow. 

And to the weak the strong be given. 

XII. 

Wifehood — thy crown — what gems that crown ? 

Thy girlhood yet must glitter there ; 
Thou shalt not cast the daughter doTiTi, 

Sister must shine with ray still rare ; 
But all their beams shall blend in one. 

Like plural hues that make the day. 
Unlike our day soon fagged and done. 

To pour the night intenser ray. 

As all its gems flash on love's eye, 

A ray so constant and so bright, 
2* 



34 POCAHONTAS. 

His lids must close, lie shall not fly ; 

Breathes from his heart, light, light, more light 
Yet not alone thy crown for him, 

Thy heart has wed at early morn, 
E'en to his eye its gems were dim, 

Ko ray to fall on thy first-born — 
Dim, if it had not brightness too. 

Diffusive as the light of heaven. 
Him first, next thine, next to God true. 

As for His ministries next given — 
Now shalt thou cry, light, light, to fill 

A firmament ; more light, to show 
Thy heart, its charities distill. 

And all the woman overflow ; 
So, thy crown brightens, could no more. 

So, thy heart fills, no more could hold ; 
Art what thou hast not been before. 

Hast been but gold, now, refined gold. 



POCAHONTAS. 35 

xni. 
Thy wifehood waits thee, haste ! oh haste I 

Adown the ages on swift feet ; 
Kot a confection, rare to taste, 

Hot an aroma, simply sweet, 
Kot what thou hast "been, all thou art, 

In charms, in virtue as in grace, 
The efflorescence of the heart, 

A heaven potential o'er thy face ; 
As in a charity profound 

As is the confluence of all guilt, 
Broad as the curse infests the ground. 

Sublime as lust his couch has built — 
As in a charm ascending clear. 

Like some new planet thwart the sky, 
Celestial to the eye and ear. 

All former heavens to glorify, 
Yet has no name — to coin a phrase 

Save some device the heart may speak. 



36 POCAHONTAS. 

And heard, no lip has songs to praise, 

"Were to confound by terms too weak, 
That type of primal loveliness, 

By wrongs torn from thee age on age, 
With voice, and smile, and soft caress, 

Permitted thee of lust and rage ; 
Such charm were perfect womanhood, 

Sublimed by suffering, to the height 
Of mother, wife, and maidenhood — 

A firmament of love, a flight 
Of wing, that strikes against the veil. 

To yield to thee when quite divine, 
When faith shall cease and sight prevail, 

And more than Eden lost, be thine. 

XIY. 

Have not a fear, O woman true 
To God ; thy cover is His shield, 

If thou shalt fall, shalt perish too, 
Thy grave is a victorious field, 



POCAHOISTTAS. ^ 37 

So has it been, so must be still. 

Too weak ? thy folly — who has more 
Of heart, of courage, and of will, 

Our fallen temple to build o'er ? 
Man ? he had fallen but for thee, 

Another fall, to crown his first ; 
When fled his God, he could not flee 

The fountain from thy heart that burst. 
So to thy task, as if the day 

Had but brief favor of the sun. 
And done thy toil, to heaven away, 

For proof of what thy love has done. 

XV. 

Had passed that winter of the ages. 

When man composed his limbs to sleep. 

Or marched the race by weary stages, 
Athwart the path he could not keep ; 

When as the relict of the man. 
Who wed thee first and hailed thee woman, 



38 POCAHONTAS. 

Thy "wifeliood secondly began, 

As man was secondly made human. 
Kow, by the scorn, and blows, and shame 

Of all thy past, shall he deliver 
Thy heart, and stamp it with his name. 

And mutual love flow like a river ; 
Now by thy smile his lance shall win, 

Kow by thy love his love rekindle, 
Break forth thy charms concealed within 

As charms without begin to dwindle ; 
Yet long he lingers in thy smile. 

Dreams of thy charms, and rises stronger, 
Religion frenzy, love half guUe, 

And both must purify yet longer ; 
As woman to the valiant knight. 

Returned from holy wars to thee, 
Thou wert his mountain of delight. 

Who kissed thy hand on bended knee ; 
Swore by his own to shield thy blood, 

Defend thine honor with his life, 



POCAHONTAS. 39 

Swore by tlie Virgin and tlie Rood, 

And honor of a knight, his wife 
Should blush not for a craven lord, 

Nor for a blot upon his fame, 
Nor for the sin by her abhorred ; 

Such was thy love, who bore his name 
No knight could dream a deed of shame- 
So did thine empire in the East, 
Sublime the manhood of the race, 

Strength in his arm, thy love increased, 
Thy smiles shed valor o'er his face, 

Thy plaudit fell, a shout Jfrom heaven, 
And when thy heart poured forth its tide 

Of love, new life to him was given. 
Who now embraced thee as his bride. 
And all his knighthood grew beside 
The river of thy love alone. 
As chivalry was all thine own. 



40 POCAHONTAS. 

XVI. 

And yet tKy sway the East confessed 

Long time a baleful planet, near 
The sun's ascension from , his rest, 

What time thy light streamed o'er man's bier. 
Still there thine empire o'er his breast, 

Is charged with heaven unto his ear, 

To cheat his lawless love of fear, 
"Who from thine arms still wakes unblest— 
His, and not thine, the shame of lust. 

His, and not thiue, he bows its slave, 
His all thine honor licks the dust ; 

Still thine the charm his life must crave, 
Since if he rise, he must by thee. 
So, while he slays thee on his knee. 
Must thou, as by a charm divine, 
Kestore his breast, and with it thine ; 
. Yet not till every star grows dim 
Shall dawn a hope of heaven for him, 



POCAHONTAS. 41 

Till by the Cross he casts his shame, 
Till love, not lust, shall wed thy name — 
When the far Orient shall arise, 
And wait till death for Paradise. 

xyn. 
Yet, but for shadows here and there, 

The elder world is lit by thee ; 
So thy dominion follows where 

The truth shall make a people free, 
As now the charmer of the knight 

Stands forth the angel of the cross. 
And all was dark, in thee is light. 

What was thy gold is now but dross ; 
Now, if a throne may boast its power 

To sway the destinies of men. 
Thy boast is when the strong devour, 

Thy love restores the weak again. 
Now, though a king may vaunt his throne 
For his dominion — 'tis thine own ; 



42 POCAHONTAS. 

And let men smile in conscious strength, 
And laugh to scorn thy snowy arm, 
It flings across all souls a charm, 
From which they fly to yield at length ; 
So, when they scofl' at thy dark eye. 
As if its terrors none would fly. 
So, when thy lips would plead or win, 
Laugh at the faith or love within. 
Still shalt thou rule them by a nod. 
And do the work of heaven, for God, 

XYIII. 

Where seen, thou wouldst be felt the most, 

Thy presence must be there the least — 

Vice drinks to thee a silent toast. 

Sick of her cheer — ^her song — her feast, 
Her courtezans — herself — if thou 

Shalt pass — a blush upon thy brow. 

And after smile — or tear, or tone 

Of soft rebuke, leave vice alone. 



POCAHONTAS. 43 

Where the debauch has reached its height, 
If thou couldst stand as still as death, 

A thousand hells must take to flight, 
As bloated Lust shall hold his breath ; 

Shalt thou but enter by the door 
The wretched enter their despair, 

And breathe a blessing on the poor, 

Thou shalt have left Christ's presence there 
And bread from heaven shall crown thy prayer; 

If thou shalt bring our heaven so near, 

We would the bridal were the bier ; 

If thou shalt smile when we would frown, 

Thine angel cleave our demon down, 

If thou slialt dash a brother's cup. 

If thou shalt lift a sister up, 

If thou shalt wake the dead to life, 

Shalt magnify the name of wife, 

A mother— if thou art divine, 

A child— and wed two hearts by thine, 

Thy name be written, not in sand, 

But on the palm of God's right hand. 



44 POCAHONTAS. 

XIX. 

So, wlien thy heart leaps out with glee, 
As mirth, and dance, and song are heard, 

And laughing hearts confess in thee 
The pleasure every heart has stirred, 

Thine eyes be hallowed light to shame 
The orgies of the night away, 

And virtue snatches for her name 
Thine, when all other names decay, 
Her fame, of all but thee the prey. 

XX. 

All hearts be thine ; so rule thou well, 
And as thou hast, in either hand, 
A charm, to win or to command 
The yielding hearts of all the race. 
And heaven accepts as hers thy face, 

To charm the heart of lust from hell 
To thy obedience, on, press on. 
Till all opposed thy rule be gone ; 



POCAHONTAS. 45 

Thou tauglit by suffering to obey, 

By Christ elected to His crown, 
Thy right to universal sway, 

Stands, when all thrones have toppled down, 

xxr. 

May roses blossom where the thorn 
Had cursed with barrenness the field ? 

Then shall a World, as if rcrbarn, 
Fruit like a virgin planet yield. 

Big with the monarch of the day ; 
Then shall a "World that shrunk away 

From the dim vision of old time, 

Rise, bearing fruits of every clime, 

Girt with the flowers of every zone, 

And like a goddess stand alone, 

Blest, by the setting of the sun, 

A virgin blushing to be won. 

O heart of woman, here as well. 

As in the Orient, breathe thy spell, 



46 POCAHONTAS. 

And here hearts brutish shall confess 
A budding, blooming wilderness. 



xxn. 
Island, immortal in thy sons. 

Who swept the lyre and weighed the stars, 
Who thundered empire from thy guns. 

Yet blessed the footprints of thy wars 
With light delivered from the Cross, 
To count the pagan gaiu for loss; 
So thou hast left the East behind. 
In striking fetters from the mind. 
Hast builded well thy common weal 

On equal justice through the land, 
By drawing on thy throne the steel. 

When it would equal laws withstand ; 
So thou hast lifted high thy torch, 

To light the progress of the race ; 



POCAHONTAS. 47 

Snatched Greece — yet cast behind her Porch — 

Sublimed — to thread the fields of space, 
To give each star its time and place, 
And on the soul her likeness trace ; 
Hast rifted every cloud to scan 
Behind the shadow, still the man ; 
Hast, by entreaty, love, and scorn, 

Persuaded, won, or stung the soul 
To seize her weakness by the horn, 

And in the dust her terrors roll ; 
Hast nerved the soul to scale her height, 

To sound her lowest deeps alone ; 
The sun a symbol for her might, '' 

And God the limit to be known ; 
Hast gathered gain by land and sea. 

Yet strewn as thou hast reaped so well. 
Thou hast a name for charity. 

That stops with heaven the mouth of hell ; 
And yet thy life has been a storm. 

Thine annals grafted on thy foes, 



48 POCAHOlSTAg. 

Whose crimes tliy forehead still deform, 
Though all the past thy life outgrows. 

XXIII. 

What cauldron — seething with what rage, 

What blood — denouncing wrath that fell, 
What blows on blows the iron age 

Dealt thee — no foe survives to tell ; 
What wars — when by the Norman blade 

The valor of thine island fell, 
A miracle by thee essayed, 

Who rose to stand by falling well ; 
What wars — when marshalled to the field 

Thy Koses blushed, or blanched, or fled, 
As one must win and one must yield, 

And the last Eose perfume its dead ; 
What tempest, scouring o'er the main 

To litter island, cape, and coast 
With power, in fleets — and life, in gain, 

Were named with storms thine annals boast ? 



POCAHONTAS. 49 

xxrv. 
Isle, thou hast never asked the world 

To seek thee with averted face, 
Till o'er thy shame her mantle hurled. 

Thou mightest rise and crave her grace ; 
Kg foe shall boast thy fears rang out, 

Enough, enough ! lest thou wert slain — 
Thy pluck was faithful to the shout, 

" For merry England — charge again ! " 

XXV. 

Who sits thy throne, and wears thy crown ? 

Who sways thy sceptre everywhere ? 
Thy lyre, thy bays, thy sage's gown ? 

Thy psalm, when triumph shakes the air ? 
Who else than Freedom, with an arm 

Quite bold enough to cleave a star, 

« 

So true to God she may not warm 

Her mettle to the height of war. 

Else were the scheme of heaven ajar ; 
3 



60 POCAHONTAS. 

Yet as a prophet bold to fling 

Defiance at her foes, and brave, 
Truth to avow as everything, 

And, better than her scorn, a grave ; 
So o'er thy throne breaks forth a light 

To dim the jewels in thy crown, 
Wisdom, to guide thy power aright, 

An arm to cleave thy foemen down, 
It bears thee on from strength to strength. 

It dips thy conquests in the skies. 
And shall be hailed divine at length, 

By all who yet the truth despise. 

XXVI. 

With Freedom regnant on thy throne, 
Thine age revered, they turn to thee, 

Thy daughters, each a corner-stone 
Wrought in the temple of the free : 

And thou dost smile a prouder smile, 
On these thine offspring, than on them, 



POCAHONTAS. 51 

Who pluck tliy skirts, cling to thine isle, 

And tell, applauding, every gem 

Ablaze along thy diadem. 
Yet fear to breast all seas, or rise 
To snatch some conquest from the skies. 



XXVII. 

Such England of a riper time. 

When she shall wear along her brow 
A gem from every soil and clime, 

A throne without a rival now ; 
Such England of historic age, 

Voted immortal in the leaf 
That binds the forehead of her sage, 

Green as the laurel of her chief; 
As in a throne to poise the East 

In arms, the confidence of peace, 
Known most by deeds, by vapor least, 

So as clouds fade let her increase. 



52 POCAHONTAS. 

XXVIII. 

A sport of Nature left tliee, Isle, 

A speck upon tlie Northern Main ; 
Or didst tliou iiaye thy Maker's smile, 

Who bade thee rise and there remain, 
Long ere the sun had sought his sphere ? 
Isle, thou hast empire in thy breast. 

Beyond all Rome or Carthage won, 
And if thou shalt possess the "West, 

And empire there be well begun, ~ 
And thou shalt wisely hold it long, 
Two worlds be thine, still standiug strong. 



XXIX. 

Brave, reckless, handsome chevalier,' 
"Who had for woman's love a tear. 
And o'er her pity for his woe. 
With tender passion feigned to glow. — 



POCAHONTAS. 53 

E'en where the North lures by her charms 

A world she freezes in her arms, 

Lion or centaur he had fought, 

With yictory so dearly bought, 

The gallant chief had left a name. 

Traced high as yirtue towers o'er shame, 

Yet dipt the pinion of its fame, 

But for a woman's subtle art. 

Him, prompted freedom by her heart. 



XXX. 

Brave, brilliant, genial chevalier, 

Life has no labor so severe, 

Ko danger so appalling, he 

Shall shun, decline, or strive to flee ; 

If, revelling in that soft clime, 

Where pleasure lives but half her time, 

Yet lives so many lives in one, 

It glows forever in the sun — 



54 pocaho:n^tas. 

He kneels the captive of her kings, 
No triumph to the crescent brings 
The slaye, who still to woman clings ; 
Now he deals smiles instead of blows, 
As all of woman's heart he knows, 
Well does he know her heart controls 
Heads vamiting woman have no souls. 
Knows he is armed from head to heel. 
Wrapped in a mail of triple steel, 
Who hath her love about him cast, 
And by her smiles, while they shall last, 
Shall conquer thrones — if to the ear 
Of kings her subtlety draws near. 
To make the falsehood truth appear, 

XXXI. 

Like a pent eagle does he rage. 
And dash himself against his cage ? 
Spurn the base task that baser men 
Enjoin his pride ? his courage, then. 



POCAHO]S'TAS. 55 

Steals fire from heaven or bane from hell, 

He smites so deadly and so well, 

The wretch, who points him to his task — 

Flies — proud, yet not too proud to ask 

From such compassion as oft led 

His feet to freedom, to be fed, 

As now a woman's heart awakes 

To love, and to her pity takes 

ThI gallant chief, whose natal star 

Charms from his breast the bolts of war. 



XXXII. 

Such was the man — who caught his smile, 
Or, when his lip persuasion poured, 

Who lingered — lingering, fell, the while — 
And such the chief— hope higher soared, 

As burst the storm and scowled the sky — 
His courage, to full stature rose, 

Inflamed his heart, assured his eye, 



56 POCAHONTAS. 

As odds of strength his way oppose — 
Born, fugitiye, as liglit or air, 

Man, of Ms time — tlie most to dare, 
No fellow — ^half his bays to wear ! 

xxxni. 
Behind the mail across his breast, 

The knight of old concealed a charm, 
" For strength in battle to his arm. 
And by the emblem on his crest, 
He won for her he loved the best ; 
Not wrath shall slay the Saracen, 
But light a torrent from her eyes, 
Reflecting heaven below the skies 
To him, who then, and only then. 
Saw in the skies above his head 
The sign for which all Christians bled 

And yet the chief was not 2> knight, 

His charm v/as thine, O Liberty, 
Who never struck but for the right, 



POCAHONTAS. 67 

Who never, craven, strove to flee 

The prowess of an enemy, 
And if in love he took delight. 

He sought the fair on bended knee, 

To snatch the spoil from victory. 
Now to the West he turns his face. 
The jest or glory of his race — 
Ventures an unknown world and clime 
To write his record for all time, 
To found an empire by the West, 
The latest, greatest, and the best. 



XXXIV. 

Fair World, reposing on the breast 
Of outspread waters — either hand* 

By a prodigious ocean prest, 

The bulwarks of thy mighty land ; 

World, thou must bow before the East 



Must feel through her His awful rod, 
3* 



58 POCAHONTAS. 

Who slays the greatest by the least, 
Obey through her the voice of God, 

Patent from immemorial time, 

For soil outspread through every clime, 

Yield back to Him and to the grave. 
And short remembrance yield a race, 

God has not stooped by man to save ; 
In which some future age may trace 
The Orient in its swarthy face, 

Lost arts, in cities buried deep, 
Religion, in its sacrifice. 

And from oblivion snatch and keep 
IsTations, who erst had trod the skies. 

XXXV. 

still him, the chief the Muse has sung- 
What was he ? brave, yet only brave, 

When life was pleading for a blow, 
No other than her own to save ? 

What was he ? wise— yet but to know 



POCAHOA^TAS. 59 

The springs a master's hand may touch ? 

How win, and o'er his conquest leer ? 

How to be else than we appear ? 
Not such the man, the chief, not such, 

Base arts like these his soul had stung. 

XXXVI. 

Not heartless was the chevalier, . 

And beauty was not all his charm, 

Not all his glory in an arm 
To cut his way forever clear 
Through foes ; not all his boast a name, 
Charged with no folly and no shame. 
And gallantry were half his fame — 

Nature had passed within the veil. 
Wrought to rare -beauty by her pains. 

And planted there power to prevail 

With man, when strength were no avail, 
And what of rarer grace remains. 

Nature was lavish in his soul 



60 POCAHONTAS. 

Of gifts, to mould the hearts of men, 

Or, lost, to win tliem back again, 

Of power to breathe the burning thought. 

Till every soul its fire has caught, 

And deeds of deathless fame are wrought : 

His, too, an eye without a lid, 

To cut the brightness of the sun, 
An eye from which no craft is hid. 

That smites a wrong ere it be done ; 

A mind to comprehend the whole 
Of man's undoing by the strong — , 
Pleas, tyranny has urged so long 

To make divine her right appear, 
To visit nations with her stroke. 

And from her victim choke a cheer. 

When God had almost shed a tear, 
And Freedom from the skies had spoke, 
And by a breath all tyrants broke ; 
A mind to see within a mind 

The germ of empire ere it be, 



POCAHONTAS. 61 

And ill its boldness leave beMnd 

Sucli as for blindness -will not see 

The good, and from the evil flee, 

Still thanking God for tyranny ; 
If with an eye to see, a voice 

To hail the progress of the race, 
A hope to make the heart rejoice ; 
Courage to toil, though none might trace 

A sign of promise in the sky, 
And vfhen disaster pressed so nigh. 

The weak his scheme of empire fly, 
And e'en had to a coming age 

Postponed the work for them to do, 
He rallies weakness not by rage. 
But with the wisdom of the sage. 

And to himself, his God, is true — 
Endures, and still endures, when all 

But for his heart had fled the West, 

Had smiled, if mortal would be blest, 
Where nature would his heart appal. 



62 POCAHONTAS. 

And deatli was stretcliing forth Ms hand 

To scourge a famine-stricken land. 

He rose above adventure then, 

He dimmed the fame of other men, 

And by a courage in alarms, 
To which the valor of the field 
Must all her flags and trophies yield, 

His own and after ages charms. 
He came to build, and built so well. 
The building stands, the skiU to tell 
Of him who built, or stands to bless 

A thousand ages as they rise, 

With benedictions from the skies, 
Triumphant, o'er the wilderness. 

xxxvn. 
O Freedom, wilt thou cease to roam, 

And, wooed forever, now be wed, 
And make this land thy chosen home, 

And break thy blessing o'er its head ? 



POCAHONTAS. 63 

Thou hadst no wooer in the East, 
With such an eye and such a breast 
As his, who wooes thee by the "West, » 

Who wooes the last, and hopes the least— 

The fire of love is in his eye, 

Strength like the sun is in his arm, 

And in his mein such majesty, 

And in his prowess such a charm— 

If thou shalt still his suit despise, 
Look for no other suitor soon. 

But back into thy native skies 
And seek a wooer in the moon. 

XXXVIII. 

vision of Empire — yet to be, 
Our eyes are straining after thcc — 
Come, ere the patient and the braTC 
Sleep side by side within the grave ; 
Come, ere they bid adieu the sun, 
And tell them, dying, they have won ; 



64 poca:hoi^as. 

Not as far off, but even near, 
Sliow tliem a State without a peer, 
Firm on lier base from sea to sea, 
The last conception of the free — 
A thought — stood up to stand a fact, 

Man — to himself a man restored, 
A soul — a j)ower to think and act, 

A hope — the heaven to which it soared, 
A will — confessed without a throne, 
Power fit to rule the world alone : 
• Hers, not the little pride of birth 

Age hands to age, or in a crest, 
Or in a lash to flay the earth. 

Enough, if Freedom's be the West. 

XXXIX. 

Seen, as the shameless lie proceeds. 
To blot her firmament of fame, 
As lust on her would light his shame. 

Her brand their scourge for whom she bleeds. 



POCAHONTAS. 65 

What but a miniature of wrath, 

A fiend accepts his hell to flee ? 
So many storms sweep down her path, 

And one, a shade, had shrunk to see, 
As now she pours her sons along 

The ridge of hattle to the charge, 
Her lips celestial with a song, 

A charm to set all fear at large — 

I. 

On, by your wives, your sons, and brothers, 
On, by His word that stands foreyer, 

On, by the gray hairs of your mothers, 
Die dear — but yield — yield never — never. 

II. 
An hour shall glorify an age. 

An age sublimer than forever, 
On, valor, on ! the foe engage, 

Die thrice — but yield — yield never — never. 



6Q POCAHONTAS. 

III. 

On, for your country, and for God, 
The freedom of the race forever; 

See, mine His smile, see, mine His rod, 
Die God's — but yield — yield never — never. 

XL. 

Seen, as her dead before her lie. 
Torn columns stand, with banners rent, 

Last — the won field before her eye. 
Its purchase half a continent. 

Then, as returning from the field 
Without a captive — in her hand 

The plighted faith of such as yield 
Their soil to hers as common land, 

Engraving on her shield the name 
Of field, of him, the gallant son. 
Who led her valor forth, and won, 

And lives or dies the spoil of fame. 



POCAHONTAS. 67 

Him, nothing shall her lips deny, 
From him no boon her hand withhold, 

"Who charms a star adown the sky, 
With heaven its lustre to enfold. 

Seen, as she grasps in either hand 
A thunderbolt, to keep the peace 

Of empire through her mighty land, 

For strengh all empires to withstand. 



XLI, 

Seen, as her days to years increase, 
And millions press about her feet. 
Each bearing all the tribute meet, 
A smile alone her smile to greet. 

Or, as she lends the weak her arm, 
Yet deals the robber first a blow, 

Or wins him over by a charm 

He hates, yet in his breast to glow 

Till freedom shall his heart disarm : 



68 POCAHOI^TAS. 

Or, as slie sweeps witli kindling eye 

Clouds everywliere in all the sky, 

Of uniyersal liberty — 
As from her tongue a living flame 

Of valor fires the slave — and then 
Another page of glorious fame, 

Charged with the annals of brave men, 
Concludes a tyrant's lust and shame. 

XLn. 
Seen, as she flings her banner out. 

To hail the rising of a star, 
And now another, with a shout, 

As each ascends from peace or war, 
To blaze upon its ample field. 

XLIII. 

Seen, when her commerce laughs at Tyre, 
And all the winds are fia,r too few 
To fill her canvass, if they blew 



' POCAHONTAS. 69 

A tempest, all too light to drive 
The trade by Tvliicli her cities thrive, 

She breathing Art, her soul's desire. 
Now all the winds may to their cave. 
As she more stoutly ploughs the wave, 
Her sails afloat on every sea. 
Her flag the passport of the free. 
Both land and sea confessing steam, 
And all the past — gone like a dream, 
Her power beginning now to be. 

As Art her ensign raises high'r. 
Now her Queen City waves the v/and 

Of commerce, and from Indian seas, 
From ocean realms on either hand. 

His loins of flame, Art thither flees. 
Affluent with every land and zone. 
Hers, as toil reaps where she has sown, 
Hers, not to rust of sloth and ease, 
Whose charities perfume the breeze. 



70 POCAHOIs^TAS. 

XLIV. 

Kow, wlien her voice is quite too weak 

To break her blessing o'er her sons, 
And they in vain their greetings speak, 

Her voice along the lightning runs, 
And all her empire grows so near, 
She hears the farthest freeman's cheer. 
And all her hail of peace may hear. 

Kow, when the sinews of her strength 
Are thunders — from her fleets of war, 
Are lightning — seizing craft afar. 
Are iron — welding into one 
Her States, united — like the sun, 
Trade must these sinews for her own. 
As nature yields to art her throne. 
Trade will the conquest for her gain. 
And with fresh courage girds again. 
To scour the land and search the main, 

So sits a queen confessed at length. 



POCAHONTAS. Yl 

XLV. 

Seen, as tlie Orient lifts her hands 

To heaven, in agonies of prayer. 
The first become the last of lands, 

A blot for beauty once so rare; 
She last ascendant, brave as fair, 

Reflecting freedom back to Greece, 
And from the harvest and the mine, 

Eepayiug her the arts of peace, 
And wisdom only not divine. 
Yet if the soil fat with the blood 

Of Greece in her heroic age, 
The soil whereon her arts have stood — 

Greece, in her lyre and in her sage, 
Fled — as the shade immortal flies 
To true enlargement in the skies: 
If Greece must yet be trodden down, 

She mourns her most with plaint and tear, 
She blackens blackest with a frown, 

As foes would last insult her bier. 



72 POCAHONTAS. 

XLVI. 

Seen, as is heard afar tlie knell 
Of death, on rolling to the ear ; 
Hers, not to wait till it comes near, 
A tale of want and woe to tell, 
But casting corn npon the sea. 

She wafts it with a jDrayer to heaven, 
That, blest as bread to Israel given, 
May ride the offering of the free, 
And vanquish Famine on her knee. 

XLVII. 

Seen, as she stretches forth her hand 

Toward the setting of the sun, 
To feel the bulwarks of her land, 
And findeth gold instead of sand 
Along the shore her valor won, 
Stm is not worse than had she none — 
Her wealth her charity begun. 



POCAHONTAS. 73 

XLYIII. 

Seen, as she signals sun and moon, 

Descries some flying orb afar, 
Or as her glass sweeps down the noon, 

Queries the signs of peace and war: 
Or when her art, by sovereign skill, 

Would lodge its towers against the sky, 
Her science lifts a finger, till 

The shattered clouds before her fly. 
As labor quickens by his sweat 

Science with nature still to strive. 
And Art to snatch the conquest yet, 

As peace by spoils of peace would thrive— 
What marvel ? as her cities drink 

The lake or river far remote, 
Crystal as quaffed along its brink, 

Or from the rock that Moses smote : 

What marvel ? as, from isle to isle, 

From continent to continent, 
4 



74 POCAHONTAS. 

Her arms discarding Nature's smile, 

Crave but from Art lier blandishment ; 
Not — liers v/lio Tved tlie sea of old, 

Of trade and freedom once the seat, 
Who down the waye flung back the gold 

A thousand years laid at her feet, 
That bridal — as, with hand in hand, 

Art leads the lake to wed the sea, 
And for a dowry, half the land 

Yields all tlie harvests yet to be : 
What maiTel ? as ere yet the morn 

Has roused the sun, Art sweeps along 
And laughs the drowsy day to scorn, 

His feet so shod, his nerves so strong ; 
What time the sun has courted rest, 
Has dashed the East against the West, 

Cumbrous with life and wealth from far ; 
Laid him upon his mother's breast, 

Escaped the seas or chance of war, 



POCAHONTAS. V5 

Wlio would a grave wlierd lie was bom ; 
Has fled the plague and cast the town, 
Whole, by the mountain, lake, and sea, 

And hurried progress on, to crown 
With oneness, all diversity: 

What marvel ? as she sinks her shaft 
Down, down the secrets of the earth. 

And science drinks her draught on draught, 
Tells all the ages since its birth, 

And to the hand of art confides 
A power that ever multiplies, 

A power half finished, that derides 
The sloth of all the centuries. 

So, as she won her maiden field 
With crazy gun and battered blade, 

Led by a valor not to yield, 
Till God her shattered files betrayed — 

Now she elects by Art her arms, 
A scourge, a thunderbolt, a storm, 
And by her fleets the East alarms, 



76 POCAHONTAS. 

And War Ms likeness would transform 
Into tlie terror of her cliarms. 

XLIX. 

She cries to Art, "what yet remains ? 

And Art replies, a hundred-fold 
Thy wealth shall yet exceed thy gains, 

If thou shalt live till thou art old, 
Shalt hold thy way as yet thou hast — 
Then without shadow in the jDast, 
Thou shalt surpass thyself indeed, 
See either hemisphere, as freed. 
And thou, the jDatron-saint of all, 
Hail man delivered from his fall. 

L. 

Sure strength might now provoke a smile 
From Freedom, as her eye sweeps o'er 

The breadth and splendor of the pile 
She builds to stand forevermore — 



POCAHONTAS. 77 



And yet slie would not boast a wMt, 

Hopes but to fitly wear her power, 
And craves to bave her honors sit 

On her— as born not to devour, 
And so sit regnant but an hour, 

As born — to stretch her rule so far, 
As peace shall lead her forth, or war 

At one, with her benignant star. 



LI. 

Seen, scarce an age yet rolled away, 
Seen, not a lock yet turned to gray, 

Her cheek still in its summer bloom, 
The fire unfaded in her eye, 
Her mien as born to rule or die ; 

For empire still demanding room, 
Though now a continent be hers. 
And many million worshippers — 
If now, as by an earthquake shock, 



78 POCAHONTAS. 

Her miglity land be rent in twain, 
It must be common soil again, 
For she is founded on a rock, 
Kock, not her mountains, not her hills, 
But Truth, a name for God, who fills 
And wields her empire as He wills. 

LII. 

She stands to bear her fortunes meet, 

Baptized of fire — as proved of God, 
Her conquest bound beneath her feet. 

One hope His smile, one fear His rod. 
She stands, a vestal, by an oath, 

Bound to keep bright the sacred flame. 
Or by a threat of doom, or both, 

She stands, and shall stand on the same, 
An eye that never winks, an ear 

Had snatched a whisper from the sun, 
A heart so stout, it had no fear. 

For strife a planet had begun ; 



POCAHONTAS. 79 

Or, as a spouse enfolds Ms bride 
Against the thunder — as his arjn 

Shall slay her terrors at her side, 

So does the heart of Freedom warm 
Toward a land she loveth well, 
Her smile a heaven, her frown a hell. 

She stands — she stands, by right divine, 
Stands by the precept of Christ's word, 
Armed with His buckler and His sword, 

And binds her forehead with His sign : 
She stands — stands stronger, by the fall 

Of all that stood before her — stands 

On all the graves of former lands, 
Hers — the immortal life of all. 



How shall she perish, while her land 

Oceans defend on either hand, 

And guardian mountains o'er it stand ? 



80 POCAHOI^TAS. 

II. 
How shall her empire be laid low, 
Unless her strength shall be her foe, 
And she shall deal herself the blow ? 

III. 
She must not fall, while either Sea 
Breaks forth — preserve thy liberty, 
Thou last Intrenchment of the Free. 



She must not fall while every star 

Descries her blazing crest afar, 

And cheers her on by peace and war. 

V. 

Fall ? never fall, unless her God, 
Stung by libations poured to Pride, 

She, spuming blood poured down His side, 
Shall fly, a shadow, from His rod. 



POCAHONTAS. 811 

VI. 

How wise — and yet the life of man 
Is scarcely meted out to her, 
Whose youth to age the wise prefer, 

As all would learn of her who can. 

VII. 

What wealth — and yet her shores are gold, 
And half her continent a mine, 
And half her wealth of corn and wine, 

A thousand years shall leaye untold. 

VIII. 

Ere long some voice may cry to thee, 
Why dost thou tarry longer there ? 
Stretch out thine empire eyerywhere, 

Where'er a people would be free. 



IX. 

Yet if a voice shall fall from far, 
4* 



82 POCAHONTAS. 

Unless it be the voice of God, 
And He precedes thee with His rod, 
Or thunders from thy conquering car — 

X. 

Stop both thine ears — it is thy fall — 
Some voice ascending fierce from hell — 
See, thou art standing strong and well, 

With nothing more if thou hadst all. 



So bold — and yet no sword she wields, 
She wears no armor o'er her breast, 
She bears no thunder on her crest, 

A Power victorious on all fields. 

XII. 

What more ? — yet tieaven has scarcely laid 
Her corner-stone — though cheer on cheer 
Salute such labors as appear, 

As if her cost had all been paid. 



POCAHONTAS. 83 



XIII. 

What more ? — and yet so vast the plan, 
Our hearts confess it as we steal 
The future of the common weal, 

Of God the work, and not of man. 



XIV. 

So vast — that not thine eye the plan 
Has seen, by which her columns rise, 
By which her dome shall cleave the skies, 

Thou, but d;n under-builder— man. 



XV. 

Some age shall hail her crowning stone 
As laid, and shout it to the skies. 
As if all stars to advertise, 

Truth reigns by God, supreme alone. 



84 POCAHOin?AS. 

XVI. 

What more ? — and yet the rising sun, 

Long hence, shall gild her topmost tower, 
What more ? — and yet her nascent power 

Its onward march has just begun. 

LIII. 

Yet all her glory hides its sheen 
Before the torch in her right hand. 
And as it mellows o'er the land, 

She by its light transfigured seen. 
Cries with a yoice all lands may hear,, 
" God is acknowledged sovereign here ! " 

LIV. 

From lips that erst poured forth a shriek, 
Half impetration, half despair, 

Her foes so strong, her sons so weak, 
Disaster falling everywhere — 
A psalm forever chokes the air. 



POCAHONTAS. 85 

Where bled a wound, slie sliows a scar 

Across her bosom — from the gore 
Of half her heart a risen star, 

As stars had risen oft before 
From fire and storm to sweep the skies: 

There star on star is rising still, 
And all to higher heavens, shall rise, 

And light the vast horizon fill. 
"Whence hung a sword — a belt of fire 

Girds her to heaven against her foes ; 
Full high her crest, she rears it high'r, 

Her peace and war — sublime repose. — 
Blaze — ^like a beacon-fire at sea, 

Betraying rock, and cape, and shoal, 
Or torch — revealing all of thee — 
So all who near thy ports may see 

A land, of which thou art the soul, 

A land, of every land the whole. 



80 POCAHONTAS. 

I. 

- A mantle was not cast on tliee 

By some ascendant gone to heaven ; 
The gift to thee direct was given 
Of God — empress of the free. 

II. 

When she was weary, faint, and worn, 
And both her feet were bleeding sore, 
He pointed Freedom to thy shore, 

And on the midnight stole the morn. 

III. 

He thmidered from the nearest star. 
Stand np, O men, and quit ye well — 
Your track be like the track of hell. 

The cause is heaven's, and so the war. 

IV. 

Freedom surpassed herself that day, 



POCAHONTAS. 87 

For every patriot was a liost, 
And eacli who bled would bleed tlie most, 
Not one would snatch Ms life away. 

V. 

For every head rolled in the dust, 

A thousand sprang from such a seed, 
- Enough for Freedom in her need, 
To drive quite home her final thrust. 

VI. 

Then, by the setting of the sun, 
ISTo crown was put upon thy head, 
• But peace from God shone there instead, 
And thy dominion was begun. 

VII. 

And thy dominion — may it stand 
Strong, and forever stronger grow — 
A planet sent of God below, 

To blaze His empire o'er a land! 



88 POCAHOI:n:AS. 

Mother, permissive of the waye — 

Sea-nymDh, what time the Orient blazed 
A fame, the elder world amazed, 

Ere last immortal from her grave — 

Clasp thy young Hope within thine arms, 
Thou wert the last that on her smiled, 
The first that blest, her as a child, 

Whose grace a mother's bosom charms. 

O guard her wellr— so fleet of wing, 
So bold of mien — so stout of heart, 
The whole of life, and not a part, 

Of empire naught or everything ; 

Cling to her, lest she break thy hold, 
Her promise scarcely seen of thee. 
And thou, beginning to be free, 

Shalt clasp thy knees ere thou art old, 

A comedy of life, instead 
Of life a torrent, that defies 
All wrath and storms, but of the skies, 

And shame for glory bind thy head. 



POCAHONTAS. 89 

LVI. 

Thou, Thou art all — and but for Thee, 
Good God, our freedom were unblest ; 

But for Thine arm to shield the free, 
But for Thy blessing on the West, 

What had we— but a blighted land, 

A nation fallen from the skies ? — 
A curse we would not understand, 
As we would still hold fast thy hand, 

And stronger grow and higher rise. 

LYII. 

Vision, effulgent to the day, 

Ascend, and to the brealdng morn, 
As ages hopeless roll away. 

Unveil the ages yet unborn. 
It shall be wine to cheer the faint. 

As strength to such as near to death 
Would with the patriot crown the saint. 

Bless thee, and yield to heaven their breath. 



90 POCAHONTAS. 

Come where the Muse is singing now 
Her song' of love, and stand serene, 
With only half thy glory seen, 
Truth for a crown upon thy brow, 
Yet only here and there a gem 
In thy anointed diadem — 
If but the shadow thou dost cast, 
Fall on their eyes, they shall stand fast, 
And buffet Death — to build for thee 
In their own name, O Liberty ! 

Lvni. 
Is there a God ? The fool has said 
There is no God — but naught instead ; 

Yet ere he dies. 

By piteous cries 
For mercy, to the Christ who bled, 
And bore the curse on His own head — 
Bellows the truth, ere he has fled 
To fill a mansion of the dead. 



POCAHONTAS. 91 

LIX. 

There is a God, tlie wise avow, 
Not in tlie arms of deatli, but now, 
As life breaks radiant from tbe brow ; 
His, too, tbe empires of the earth, 

He rules or overrules their thrones, 
Blesses a nation's struggling birth, 

He gathers all the bleaching bones 
Of such as gave her to the light. 
And she made precious in His sight. 

For all the patriot's blood atones. 

LX. 

Ho ! Atheist, has the world a name 

For every volume thou hast writ ? 
Half lost or blotted, were thy fame 

Obscured or shrunken by a whit ? 
Hast thou a secret in thy breast, 
A charm, to set thy fears at rest, 



02 POCAHONTAS. 

When tliou hast sent thy doubts abroad, 

To curse by man, and challenge God ? 

Then cast it out to follow thine, 

And choke the lie with truth divine. 

When thou dost build — to count the cost 
Of man — invoke an atom's smile — 

To wake, and weep thy labors lost. 
And inly scoff at God the while — 

This all thy record in the past, 

Thy first delusion and thy last ? 

God — and not Chance :— approach and see 
Him, by an atom, purge a world, 

Donate it to the brave and free — 
See power against that atom hurled, 

Had sunk the trident of all waves- 
Had shaken Csesar on his throne, 

Had filled for one a thousand graves — 
Yet see that atom build alone. 



POCAHONTAS. 93 

LXI. 

God — sees thy God — His atom — man, 

Trod, like the mire beneath om* feet, 
Lifts up that atom as God can, 

Bold now a world in arms to meet — 
That atom thunders like a God, 

Kow it has risen from its knees, 
Cuts through all foes with rod on rod, 

The complement of God's decrees. 
See God that atom roll along 

Thro' fire and flood — thro' smoke and stonn, 
Grown vast in volume — now so strong. 

It looks a shadow of His form, 
Or prophet, with His lips of fire. 

From mountain, valley, hill, and glen, 
Sovereign by God till God retire, 

To publish liberty to men. 
Here — see that atom doomed to die, 
Rise — and the power of hell defy. 



94 POCAHONTAS. 

And what remains above the sky — - 
Shall God descend — and stand it by. 

LXII. 

O Muse, dost thou forget the chief, 
Who bears an empire in his breast, 
Who would embrace for truth the West, 

And yet an hour were not so brief 

As life — now to the chevalier, 

Unless a woman loiter near ? 

A star must fling her from the skies, 
A billow toss her from the main, 

Or from the forest she must rise. 
So he may freely breathe again. 

Her — a new conquest for his eye — 
Hers — ^not the beauty of the East, 

Of lip and cheek, of smile and sigh. 
Yet all their grace by hers increased. 



POCAHONTAS. 95 



Flower — crowning some old citadel, 
All its defences rank with, dead, 

Kot a survivor left, to tell 
For whom its brave defenders bled — 
Where roUed the storm — a perfume shed. 

II. 
Flower — trampled by the hurrjring feet 
Of squadrons burning for the fray- 
Its breath o'er all the carnage sweet, 
A prayer — where none are knelt to pray, 
In mid-descent God's wrath to stay. 

III. 

Flower — ^like an Alpine sTirub a-bloom, 
• Antithesis of sight and sound, 
A charm to stay the fall of doom. 
Beauty, with terrors thick around — 



96 POCAHONTAS. 

Perfume — wliere fields of ice return, 
Its soft entreaty hail and snow — 

Love, whose soft smile, the glaciers spurn- 
Yet left — to shame their crash below. 

IV. 

Flower — set to guard its slumbrous dead, 
"Wafting the sullen nightshade, hail — 

It — flinging poison back, instead 
Of rapture, by the carrier gale — 
For love — must die ere it can fail. 

V. 

Flower — in a crevice of the rock, 
Cheered by the ministries of stone, 

Its shield against the tempest's shock — 
A love — the flower gets for its own. 
All love beside — a love unknown. 



POCAHONTAS. 97 

VI. 

Flower— clambering o'er a withered stem, 
Cast prone, decaying, on the ground, 

A monarch and his diadem — 
Yet all his fellows jeering round 
It — all to prove his kingship found. 

VII. 

Flower — shut against the eye of day, 
To burst with rapture to the night — 

As if the look of man astray 

From heaven, were such a hateful sight — 
It would the darkness more than light. 

VIII. 

Flower — by the maddening torrent's leap, 

Baptized of wrath to peerless hue, 
By weakness holding to the steep. — 

As wrath raves on to meet its due, 

Half would the same chastisement too. 
5 



98 POCAHONTAS. 

IX. 

Flower — from a seed some bird had cast 
Adown the air in passage flight — 

A rock delivered from the blast, 
Grew — and it filled with new delight, 
The rock — less rugged by its sight. 

X. 

Flower — ^behind curtains of the wood, 
Weeping for dalliance with the sun, 

Stretching its vine well nigh a rood, 
And with his smile all but undone. 
Yet its true life but just begun. 

XT. 

Flower — creeping jfrom the river's brink, 
To fly the sport of wind and wave. 

Or brawling storm, its graces shrink 
To face — and sooner would a grave. 
Than breast a storm its life to save. 



POCAHONTAS. 99 

xii. ^ 

Flower — by some covert on the waste 

A-blusli to drought and surging sand — 
A life for him shall kneel to taste 

The life-drop sparkling in its hand — 
Yet has no pilgrim passed that way, 

Still it shall hold for him — still hold — 
A gift — lest he yet thither stray, 

Of price— beyond the reach of gold. 

xin. 
Flower— as by Etna's throat of fire, 

Profuse of fragrance to his wrath, 
As flames ascend, as they retire, 

One smile of sabbath still it hath — 
K it shall quite escape his track, 

Yet hold by root or tendril fast — 
The mountain, fleeing, may look back. 

And, as at first, shall smile at last, 

That flower — when ^tna has swept past. 



100 POCAHONTAS. 



xiy. 
Flower — clinging to the reaper's blade, 

Lopt— bleeding — dying in perfume, 
A smile for him its life betrayed — 

A loye — for which his heart makes room. 

XV. 

Flower — where the scourge of fire had passed, 

As by a miracle unswept — 
The weak the strong surveying last, 

Dust — by a timid cowslip wept. 

XVI. 

Flower — planted by the hand of God, 
Where life had withered but for Him, 

A smile to intercept His rod, 

A glimpse of heaven for vision dim — 
E'en out of hell to heayen a hymn. 



POCAHONTAS. 101 

LXni. 

Flower — slirinking from an Orient sun, 
And by the sunset drinking dew, 
Enough, though dusky he thy hue 

Since thou hast grace, and art has none. 

So thine a perfume far more rare, 
Than floats about the Georgian maid — 
So thy dark beauty shall not fade. 

When hers is not so passing fair. 

Where didst thou hide a woman's heart, 
How keep the pulse of Nature true 
To heayen — as hell was full in view — 

All hearts but thine of hell a part ? 

Lxrv. 
O Nature — if there fell a stain 

Across thy forehead from the fall, 

A touch of love survives us all 
To almost wash thee white asjain ! 



102 POCAHONTAS. 

Let now a burst of pity start, 
A pulse of love without desire, 
Or the first kindling of the fire 

Of passion in a maiden's heart — 

And thou shalt put away thy frown, 
Love plead above the monster's yell, 
Heaven shall succeed the wrath of hell. 

And life beat stoutly, stricken down. 



LXV. 

Kow, to the shame of love, had fled 

A shivering wretch behind her fears. 
Love not to answering love as wed. 

Love a Divinity appears — 
Love, with her bow arched o'er her tears. 

Now, to the shame of love — had stood — 
The victim's shrink had caught — beheld 

His agony — his swoon — his blood — 
Yet had not against life rebelled — 



POCAHONTAS. 103 

Love from the firmament, lights down 
To add a jewel to her crown. 

LXYI. 

Be a stout heart, O Child, and win 

A laurel ever fresh and green — 
Fame to revive, to last begin . 

When his thou lovest shall have been : 
So, as the tomahawk is raised 
To cleave his forehead — God be praised I 
If thou shalt shield him from the stroke, 
By thine — Powhatan's heart be broke, 
And his base quarrel end in smoke. 

Lxvn. 
Divine — the Indian maiden seems, 
Divine — in her chaste love — and beams 
Gently on him", who darkly gleams 

With that strange wrath 

A savage hath ; 



104 POCAHONTAS. 

Till late Powhatan's heart confesses 
Kinship with ours — and as he blesses 
His child — ^his yictim he caresses. 

Lxvni. 
Then Love, as heaven first blessed it — Love, 
Its strength leviathan — a dove 
By gentleness all hearts to move — 
Wrote high its name in modern story 
And bright as ever be its glory, 
When sun, and moon, and stars are hoary ! 

LXIX. 

Was it the yearning of a child, 
Who may not see an insect die 

Without a shudder — may not fly 
A cry of pain without a sigh ? 

Life in its bud, ere yet a stain 
Falls on the blossom from the sun, 



POCAHONTAS. 105 

Its leaves unspotted, by the rain, 

Not skrimk as when the day is done ? 
Love, touched of heaven, not of desire, 

A love not long to last, yet all 

Of love untainted by the fall — 
Love to which seraphim aspire ? 
Glows till the bud unfolds a flower 

And blushes perfume to the air, 

And all beholders fear its power 
To fill with rapture or despair, 

The heart shall linger longest there — 
In ow passion — yet all undefiled ? 

LXX. 

Or was it love — at first the glow 
Of childhood, touched of friend or foe, 
If either look a look of woe ? 
Soon to grow bolder, as the eye 
Takes to the heart a blash or smile, 
5* 



106 POCAHONTAS. 

Or as the ear draws in a sigh, 
And into passion fades the while — 

As maidenhood steals softly on, 
Has set its blush upon the face, 

And childhood's touch of heaven is gone, 
And woman charms us with her grace? 

LXXT. 

Muse, thou hast neither charm nor spell, 
To snatch the secret from her breast : 

Sing, if at first a child's concern 
Redeemed the founder of the West, 

Compassion that must loathe and spurn 
The axe, the torture, and the knife— 
Or pity that would lay its own, 

Where wrath had laid a foeman's life. 
Yet when the child a maid had grown, 

She startled — flying first desire, 
And then the struggle to conceal 



POCAHONTAS. 107 

Passion unanswered — fire by fire — 
Though scarce a blush doth all reveal. 

Lxxn. 

Child of the forest, so thy heart 

Is woman's, and thy nobler part, 

Nor is the subtlety profound 

Of thy dark race within it found, 

Coiled like a serpent there, to sting 

The hand, would holiest ofilisrings bring. 

Lxxni. 
If the first man might vaunt his strength, 

His heart of courage, as ah eye 

Had almost read the unread sky — 
Ere out of sleep thou wert at length, 

O woman, plighted from his side, 
A smile — a tear — a heart unknown, 

A grace surpassing grace — ^his bride — 



] 08 POCAHONTAS. 

Life was but promise — not its flower. — 

Him — flying — lost — tliy love survived, 
Clung faithful to him to this hour, 

Oft as re-born, by love revived. 
Maid of the forest — thou art she. 

Thou hast a remnant of her grace, 
Hast all her heart, she could not flee, 

Thou^ — the survivor of thy race. 

Lxxrv. 

Kor shalt thou falter at the Fount 
For cleansing sin — thine to recount. 
And by our holy Christian rite, 
Confess for thine the God of Light- 
Give to the winds thy father's creed, 
And for his evil conscience bleed. 

LXXV. 

Kow, as the hallowed light of Heaven 
Within thy breast begins to glow, 



POCAHONTAS. 109 

As future life to tliee is given, 

And better life wMle here below — 
Sliall the flower fade and drooping, rue 
The light of ITature ? — or unfold 
Its leaves, and take a deeper hue, 
From softer light and other dew, 

And loads of sweeter breath be rolled 
Along the night and morning air, 
Yocal with thy first chaunt or prayer ? 
So, too, thou art a child no more, ' 

A maiden blushing like the mom, 
Thine eyes are fire but light before, 

The savage by the saint is shorn, 

And thou art only forest- bom : 
So thou hast learned to love thy foe, 

Yet still art lovely to thy race, 
And all their savage bosoms glow, 

Lit by the goodness of thy face. 



110 POCAHONTAS. 

LXXVI. 

Then did the Pale Face, as he gazed 
On thy dark beauty — struck — amazed, 
When Christ had heightened all thy charms, 
Win thee, and take thee to his arms. 

Lxxrn. 
Not his — for whose, thy life had stood, 

Had spurned the axe — had snatched it, too- 
Not his for whom thy mantling blood 

Erewhile confessed a passion true — 
Another love, thy heart has felt. 

Thy lips have sworn it by their vow, 
Thine eyes and his with passion melt — 

Thy first love lost or fled thee now. 



Another love — if there may be 

Succession to her crown — whose throne 
She builds as for eternity. 



POCAHONTAS. Ill 

And filled — must fill it quite alone, 
Till both as one be oyertbrown. 

II. 

Another loye — if sueb. may bloom 
Above the dust we huddle deep, 

Deep in the grave— and in its room, 
Strange odors luU the heart asleep — 
To wake to smile, and not to weep. 

Ill, 
Another love — if that be such, 

Coaxed from the sequel of delight, 
So rare, it shunned the slightest touch. 

And almost fainted led to light — 

Yet had no symbol for its might. 

IV. 

Another love — ^if that may shine, 
May feel at home perched on the crown, 



112 POCAHONTAS. 



Whence all the pride of sea and mine 
Erst poured its light in torrents down- 
A queen confessed, and not a clown. 



V 

Another love — if such may charm 

The wound to fly and leave no scar- 
Then leaning on another arm, 
Return a love with love at war — 
Forget the sun, to wed a star. 



VI. 

Another love — if such may stand 
As victor on a fallen field, 

Bear off a trophy in her hand, 
Yet must as corse or captive yield 
A blade etherial fire annealed. 



POCAHONTAS. 113 

VII. 

Anotlier love — if love remain 
A pilgrim by a rifled sliriiie, 

Escaped— all faith would most retain, 
And faith is left alone divine, 
A branch to die — ^lopped off its vine. 

VIII. 

Another love — if that be love, 

The heart still doubts if it be true, 

Curious of earth — of sky above, 
For its first throb and dearest too — 
A world to know the way it flew. 

IX. 

Another love — if that shall be 
A salve to heal a mortal wound, 

The blood yet oozing from it free, 
As with the fang that made it, bound, 
Life trickles fleet along the ground. 



114 POCAHONTAS, 

X. 

Another love — if from a cloud 
As does God's promise — ^love may rise, 

Restoring hope long disallowed, 
And cleave a heaven to weary eyes, 
As it the cloud so glorifies. 

XI. 

Another love — if that may fly 
A shadow like a raven's wing, 

Oft as we laugh, flits nearest by, 
Would, as the lips essay to sing. 
Stand — and a sly, grim greeting fling. 

XII. 

Another love — if that may cast 

A weapon — where the heart is set- 
To slay each phantom flitting past — 
Or charm — shall make the heart forget, 
E'er lost, or e'er its fellow met. 



POCAHONTAS. 115 

xin. 
Another love — perhaps it may ^ 

Of love a grain sift from the past, 
And for a bride give it away, 

And bind the rite of marriage fast — 

To burst a throb of art at last. 

STV. 

Another love — if hearts may feel 
What time from ashes love ascends. 

Has pilfered what she may not steal, 
A flame — that never once descends, 

To make for love amiss — amends. 

XV. 

Another love — yet it may come— < 
From lip, and eye soft greeting wave, 

As heart once dead, and lip once dumb, 
Awake — and life for ashes crave, 
No past — except to mark its grave. 



116 POCAHONTAS. 

XVI. 

Another love — ^yes, it may glow 
With deeper blush — ^with sweeter strain, 

Hail the new passion — overflow 

The heart with rapture— and again 
Find joy beyond joy lost, remain. 

XVII. 

Another love — ^yes, with the beat 
Of its first fervor — ^with the glow 

Of its first fire ; yet love discreet. 
Love — all yet short of heaven we know, 

We could not straight for heaven forego. 

XVIII. 

Another love — ^yes, it may rise, 
Tenfold an angel, from the dust, 

All, cast it headlong from the skies, 
Keceive without a wound — as must 
A life divine a mortal thrust. 



POCAHONTAS. 117 

XIX. 

Another love — yes, ring the bells, 
Quaff at the bridal rounds of cheer, 

The bride's eye like a charm dispels 
The past — attracts the future near — 
First loye had scarce a laugh so clear. 

Lxxvin. 
Life — what is life ? cheat treading cheat — 

Or life — a mountain piled of grains ; 
Each grain a chorus to repeat, 

Confusion waits on all our pains. 
Yet when a cloud impends — and we 

Grow blind, compelled beneath its shade, 
We would some other cloud to flee 

Ourselves — to feel our hope betrayed 
Once more : — and so the thing we do, 

Its fruit confusion — is the thing, 
Our life is courted to pursue — 

And at its close we sigh or sing, 



118 POCAHONTAS. 

Escape from every cheat — to test 

That life, had scorned a cheat— or prize 
Or plague — now challenging our eyes. 



LXXIX. 

Does a child wed the earth and sky ? 

A psalm of praise to God for life, 
Too tender yet to heave a sigh, 

To dream a mother is a wife. 
A smile has leaped the Garden wall, 

And lit on her despite the fall. 
A tear-drop stands in either eye 
To weep her mother, lest she die. 
She is the butterfly for wing. 

For sweetness like the breath of morn. 
Beauty, as yet without its sting, 

A burst of laughter for the thorn. 



POCAHONTAS. 119 

LXXX. 

Is a maid lovelier tlian the grace 

Of youth — as rendered into stone ? 
And does the canvass blush her face, 

Or but the cheat of art alone ? 
Is she not sweeter than the rose, 
Wafting its tribute to her nose, 
She plucks for envy, lest its glow 
Be deeper than her lips may show. 
It — whiter than her -breast of snow ? 
Yet had the rose blushed more to see 

Her blush, whose cheeks are tinged with heaven, 
Or its pale charms, her charms would flee. 

Where nature has with nature striven — . 
She dashes every drop of dew. 

Lest by the sparkle of its gem. 
Her cheeks must take a deeper hue 

For eyes, her regal diadem — 
The lily in her hiand she bears. 

She sees, unenvied, as less fair 



120 POCAHONTAS. 

Such grace tlian hers, and so she wears 

Its charms where eyes rude glance forbear- 
She it— why envy grace divine ? 

Why envious of poor art, her ape ? 

Why take a charm from sea or mine 

A gaud to make the vulgar gape ? 

LXXXI. 

She smiles— for whom or what her smile ? 

For nature, smiling back her glee ? 
For birds as free as she from guile ? 

For One whose eye she would not flee. 
Do not her eyes confess by tears, 

A pleasure simulating grief. 
When days are magnified to years, 

And years are wept, their stay so brief? 
Whence is her blush — her smile — her eye ? 

A visitant from Heaven may tell — 
Look — but with trembling, lest they fly. 

Soft — a rude glance, and gone the spell. 



POCAHONTAS. 121 

The song she trills is not for thee, 

Thine ears have snatched it from the mom: 
Hie hence !— thy shadow she shall flee, 

To her thy love were as thy scorn — 
Fled — if thy lingering she shall hear — 

With deepening blush, by step and bound 
Of fleet gazelle — her feet shall clear 

Thy presence, for the shade profound. 

LXXXU. 

Yet free her heart as any breeze. 
Toying the day with flowers and trees ; 
Love yet a secret, or a dream 

"Wed to her slumbers — to the day 
All things she loves — for all things seem 

To smile her joyous life away. 
Grrief has not even touched her eye, 

The smile of childhood yet remains, 
Her innocence too — nearer by. 

Than when her heart to guile attains — 
6 



122 POCAHONTAS. 

Visions had hurried back to air, 
Struck by a loveliness so rare. 
A turtle-dove shall vroo in vain 

Her heart yet Tvedded to the skies — 
Full soon a tie to burst in twain, 

When love to her shall incense rise. 



Lxxxiir, 
Love ? — she is filial — so her heart 

Is set a mirror for the eye 
Of one, who must with horror start, 

If cross it but a shadow fly. 
"No grief— no joy, will she — to hide 

From that confessor — whose her life ; 
So in her heart shall she abide 

Whose tears baptize her soon a wife. 
Love ? — to a brother hers shall move — 

Has he a grief is not her own ? 



POCAHONTAS. .123 

Slie to liis rage returns her love — 

So, be tlie tempest overblown, 

That it lias been, shall ne'er be known. 
Yet later, and, O Muse, thy song 

Were like our art, would kindle skies 
With shadows — love has grovvTi so strong, 

Grown to a likeness art defies. 



Lxxxrv. 
So she has dreams, and in her dreams, 

Joy to outlustre joy by day. 
Worlds to eclipse the world that seems, 

Touched by a more etherial ray. 
O Muse, if thou couldst enter in 

Her bosom, as she wooes repose, 
Shake from thy skirts all dust of sin, 

So not a cloud to heaven oppose, 
Thy revelation were not song — 

E'en didst thou seize the pencil too, 



124 POCAHONTAS. 

Both lyre and canvass liad done wrong 
To her true vision of the True — 

If ever God breaks on the soul, 
Must be ere sin has spun her veil, 

Be vrhile He is of life the whole — 
Ere He retire — and clouds prevail. 



LXXXV. 

O Beauty, scarcely even lent, 

Kissed in the bud — bewailed so soon — 
Thy sheen, when past the firmament, 

Outdazzles hers, as hers the noon : 
And thou must thither haste anon. 

Yet in thy fiight, O cast behind 
A charm for grace, its shadow gone — 

Beauty thrice charming, thrice refined. 

And quite immortal as the mind. 
That whoso wooes her now — may see, 

As fade her charms, her heart ascend, 



POCAHONTAS. ' 125 



Restore her cheek — relume her ee, 
Her modesty with heayen defend. 



LXXXVI. 

So the flower opens to the sun, 
Emitting perfume — to the eye 
Fair as the bud— as one by one 
• All hearts confess it in a sigh — 
What charm has kindled all her charms, 

As now her eye returns thy glance, 
Her heart, surprised of passion, warms. 
And loye is challenged to advance ? 



Lxxxvn. 
Beware — thy soft approach is now 

No terror to her heart or eye, 
A blush may flit across her brow, 

Her heart may even heave a sigh, 



126 POCAHONTAS. 

Yet she may love — or love tliee not, 

And tliou love on, of lier forgot. 

Beware — thy heart may be thine own, 
Or may be wedded quite to fame, 
Or to the pride of wealth or name, 

Yet all thy heart be hers alone. 

Or if some other heart has hid 
Thine ov/n within itself, and sleeps, 
To dream thine eye its vigil keeps. 

And waves off slumber from its lid, 

By tender glimpses of her charms, 

As if soft nestling in thine arms. 

And thou hast hid that heart in thine. 

Hast plighted troth, and would the day 
Had come — when both shall be as one — 

Beware — lest thy -weak heart may stray 
From its firm troth, and be undone — 
Thy love may not be hers — divine. 



POCAHONTAS. 127 

LXXXVIK. 

Now is the maiden like the chief 

Who teUs the battles he has won, 

Yet aU his battles seem as none. 
Though every conquest be a leaf 

To bind his brow — ^he weeps — undone 
For vaster conquests — hailed afar, 
The pledge of his victorious star. 

LXXXIX. 

Have thou, O Muse, a care— Not hers 
To slay when Itnelt her worshippers, 
Not hers to charm some heart along 
By blush and sigh, by smile and song, 
And late to bid it cold adieu. 
As were its pangs to beauty due — 
She — but a conqueror at play, 

Her shield a tear — her lance an eye, 
Yet for the wounded in the fray, 

Her heart demands to bleed or die— 



128 POCAHONTAS. 

Soon on her clieek a deeper glow 

Shall fall from heaven, and from her eye 
Light soft, yet like a torrent flow, 

As she all hearts but one shall fly — 
'Twas but the maiden's first escape 

From love a dream, to love a sense. 
Enamored of herself — in shape 

A sex below her innocence — 
A sex above her sex to rise 

In strength, to conquer sea and land, 
In soul, the soul to understand — 

Hers— all, related to the shies. 

xc. 

Is the world less than the first sigh. 
Than the first answer of an eye 
To him who loves ? — and if a tear. 

Speak the excess of blush and smile. 
Of glance and sigh — were heaven too dear 

For such a joy — his, all the while ? 



POCAHONTAS. 129 

XCI. 

To give one pulse and have return 

A tliousand-fold of like deliglit, 

To swell the heart, to cheer the sight, 
Is not a trick of art to learn — 
For vsroman's heart is prompt to give 
All love may challenge — or receive — 
And 'tis man's heart her heart to grieve, 
By doubting -when he should believe, 
And ever holding in reserve, 

Love — ^her strong love had challenged now. 
As if she did enough deserve 

To keep the shadows from her brow. 

And that falfilled the marriage vow — 
More pains to love, O man, and feel 

Thy heart grow vast to hold a sea, 
And stay the tide be thy appeal. 

As woman metes her love to thee. 
6* 



130 POCAHONTAS. 

XCII. 

Go in thy heart, with lamp in hand — 

As passicg by each chamber door, 
^ Flash light within — of all demand 

Therein, to dare the light once more. 
One chamber is as dark and drear, 

As be the passions skulking there, 
There send a ball, thrust in a spear, 

Slay every inmate unaware — 
Where in some chamber thou hast hid 

Selectest love for child and wife. 
Search well — some phantom may have slid 

Therein, the bane of all thy life ; 
Is, too, so subtle to the touch, 

Is, too, so viewless to the eye, 
Light from God's eye, if thou hast such. 

Hast, too. His hand when it would fly. 
Thou art well armed for such a foe. 
And thou shalt lay that passion low. 



POCAHONTAS. 131 

It may be lust for gold — or be 

Ambition, or tbe lure of Fame, 
Some airy hand to throttle thee, 

Some pulse to set a blush of shame 
Upon thy forehead, when the glow 

Of early love restores her face. 
Who is thy heart thou wilt not know — 

Ejiown — for her loye thou hadst not place. 
Shame on thee — if thou hast no room 

For her to bloom within thy heart. 
All shame had fled her vast perfume — 

Thou, too, wert not the man thou art. 
Shame on thee — careless to return 

Thy child's caress at eye and morn, 
All, cast both out, till thou shalt spurn, 

Ko other child to thee be born. 

xcin. 
Dost smile ? — shame on thee— rather weep 
O'er all thy bosom must defile — 



132 POCAHONTAS. 

Have niglits of agony for sleep, 

Till what is lioly, -what is vile 
Stands forth by contrast to thine eye, 

And thou art bold enough to bind 
One to thy heart ere it shall fly, 

And cast the other's corse behind. 
The Muse is curious of thy boast — 

Be it of rank, of wealth, of fame ? 
What is the fault thou lovest most ? 

Whence dost thou have it ? from thy vow ? 
What j)lea to find it in thy wife ? 

She never loved thee more than now, 
Was ne'er unfaithful in her life. 
Thou hast no shield — all thou canst do 

Is but to skulk behind a lie — 
Wouldst thou be false, since she is true, 

So safelier hide thy infamy ? 
E'en hast thou kept thy vow — a stain 

Less horrid than from faithless love, 



POCAHONTAS. 133 

Falls on thee, ever to remain, 
Till thou hast reached a wide remove 

From the gross care, consumes as fire, 
All, sweetens life, and beckons death 

To meet thee midway thy desire. 
When love regretful, craves but breath, 
To falter words the Wise Man saith. 



xcrv. 
So woman, too, in thy true heart, 

Evil glides subtly like a thief. 
And when thy love a tear would start, 

Anger, a-growl, displaces grief. 
The serpent striking at thy heel, 

Trails after thee — his quarry yet, 
And thou dost oft his venom feel, 

When wrath and love in thee are met. 
As when a lion spies a lamb 
On some wide stretch of flower and balm, 



134 POCAHONTAS. 

The monster, as lie crams his maw, 

Shrieks blood— so oft thine eyes confess 
A tempest, for the calm we saw — 

A triumph o'er the lamb's distress. 
Query thy heart with tenfold light, 

Since it is doubly shut from day, 
Is doubly drear where falls the night, 

If bright as heaven with heaven's own ray- 
Confront thine evil, not in form 

A lion prowling o'er the plain, 
Skies pelting nature with a storm — 

A phantom with a swelling train, 
Chameleon-tinted — at a beck 

To squat where'er a passion sits, 

To take its guise — by starts and fits 
Its gale, its port, but last its wreck. 
Bold — seize the phantom, though its eyes 
Glare as did his, thrust down the skies 
Combustion then, combustion still — 

Seize it and strangle in its den 



POCAHONTAS. 135 

The monster tliou slialt hardly kill, 

But wound with stripe on stripe again, 
As it shall like a mentor rise, 

To teach thy fears, how they do well, 
Love proved by love — to doubt, despise — 

Let jealous rage a tempest swell. 

Burst, and diminish types from hell. 
Yet if thy doubt stand on a rock, 

Be not the fault of too much love : 
Be thou a tempest — by its shock 

Assure the heart essays to rove — 
Would other covert than thy breast, 
All love but thine must be unblest — 
So love dilating to her height. 

In every regal vestment clad, 
That heart attracted by the sight, 

Shall wiser turn to thee — though sad, 

A safer heart— Heart never had. 



136 POCAHONTAS. 

XCV. 

So woman — by thy leave— hast thou 

Full often eaten bitter bread, 
And charged it to a shaken vow, 

While a true heart most wronged, has bled, 

Bore public scorn in thy own stead- 
What mother tells her fingers oft 

To prove how many babes be hers ? 
What wife shall hold her heart aloft 

A shrine for plural worshippers ? 
And yet, O woman — by thy leave — 

Thy babes do oft forget thy voice, 
So strange thy look, they start or grieve. 

Thou near — thou absent — they rejoice ; — 
Wherefore ? no answer ? then have mine — 
Thou hast a love betraying thine. , 

So too, O woman — craved thy grace — 

Ofttimes a true heart seeks in vain, 
In heart, in voice, in trustful face, 

A love without reserve, or stain 



POCAHONTAS. 137 

Of truant gossip with a heart 
Not thine — nor of thy vow a part. 
Dispel the cloud of phantoms — see 

As in a mirror — purged — thy heart — 
Dost all but from the shadow flee, 

So rare, so wonderful, thou art ? 
Dear woman — now what heart be thine, 
Has for its fellow, one divine. 

xcvi. 
Household or heaven — or both as one. 

Vision of husband, children, wife, 
Assembled when the day is done, 

As lofty or as lowly life 
Wafts clouds of incense from its hearth, 

Praise to the Giver of all good. 
And childhood folds the tender birth, 

As it, by weakness understood 
How fragile, life — to wistful sire 

Commits its charge — or to her kiss, 



138 POCAHONTAS. 

A motlier's, yields withlield desire, 

Caress tlie tiabe ne'er seeks amiss ? 
Ere handed to the nurse's arms, 

Ere kissed a farewell for the night — 
Have for sere life, its budding charms, 

Feel one bold throb of true delight. 
Begone — the dust of daily toil, 

Begone — the day has hoarded gold — 
Welcome no robber to despoil 

That home, and leave its hearthstone cold. 

xcvn. 
Is a bride fair before her vow, 

And quite an angel, less the skies ? 
As all the jewels round her brow, 

Shrink from the lustre of her eyes, 
And as a smile breaks o'er her face, 

Or as her laugh rings oat so clear. 
What shall He most admire ? her grace ? 

Crave most ? her whisper in his ear ? 



POCAHONTAS. 139 

What shall He love the most ? her charms ? 
Her beauty ? or is this a veil 

To hide such treasures of his heart, 
As never fade, as shall not fail 

When death at last thrusts home his dart — 
Heaven last, to wait Him in her arms ? 
Is a bride sweet ere she is wed, 

The orange blooming o'er her train, 
Flowers breathing odors round her head 

At strife with her sweet breath in vain ? 
Has she .a censer in her hand, 

And as she swings it, does the air 

Breathe sweetness round her everywhere, 
Shall make Him kneel at her command 
Him — of £er heart— soon all her own ? 



XCVIII. 

But wedded, is she not divine ? 
Scarce half her beauty seen before, 



140 POCAHONTAS. 

And half the sweetness in the vine, 
Till it has wound its column o'er — 
Fast, to be shaken nevermore ? 
Heart, lip, and cheek confess his name — 
So, if her eyes be still the same, 

Is it not heaven he sees within ? 
And gone her beauty — were not loss, 
If her fine gold remain for dross : 

Let all he sought erewhile to win 
Now fade a shadow from his eye — 
To win the woman, he could die. 
"What was but passion in the maid. 

Is strong affection in the wife — 
What was her beauty, now may fade. 
And leave him all the charm of life, 
Him — with her heart— all his alone. 

xcix. 
What of the field by valor won ? 
Of fame — her glare, her eye, her ear ? 



POCAHONTAS. 141 

Of gold, the motli's ere ours begun ? 

All flies us fast as we drav/ near ? 
It were the sighing of a leaf, 

Or breeze to sway the gossamer, 
Its corse were buried without grief, 

Its promise waved a swift adieu. 
For ampler room were left behind 

For love to bloom and fruit anew — 
Thrice proved, thrice tender, thrice refined, 

More heart, less passion, more divine — 

Hast a fall heart, O Heart — if thine. 

c. 

What is life worth, death at the door ? 

What it will fetch in heaven or hell — 
What IS life worth to rich or poor, 

When hearts beat stout and death repel, 

And to the eye all seemeth well ? 
Worth, then, the current coin of trade ? 

Broad lands, that far outstretch the eye ? 



142 POCAHONTAS. 

The fame a thousand lives have made ? 

The power we seize, and then would fly ? 
Fling all the world into the scales, 

And the small dust that there remains, 
When the world topples out or fails, 

Bulk beyond all the world attains — 
Dust like the dust beneath our feet, 

A thousand violets we tread, 
Till trodden most, they yield most sweet. 

Perfume our lives, and bless us dead — 
Is the rose sweeter on the waste, 

Than as it blooms beside the wall ? 
Is water sweeter to the taste, 

Where clouds drift o'er and never fall, 
If on the drifting sands a spring 

Gladdens the ever-straining eye ? 
If to the rock some drops may cling. 

Drink for the ravens, when they ciy ? 
So of the ministries we hide 

Behind the sunshine, for the cloud, 



POCAHONTAS. 143 

So of love blooming at our side, 

"With half her fragrance disallowed, 

When lip, and heart, and eye are proud — 
If shadows close around our path. 

Her odors seem the breath of God, 

Evolved as smitten by His rod. 
As if to mercy yielded wrath. 
And when Ambition wings his flight 

So near the sun, his wings take fire, 
Or his balloon sails out of sight. 

And bursts as he still shouts it high'r, 
Then, if there be one heart our own, 
We are not falPn, though overthrown. 

CI. 

So hast thou wooed and wed a heart — 
If not a -remnant of thy gain, 
Of thy ambition yet remain ; 
If thou hast soiled at last thy name 
With some foul blot of guilt or shame ; 



144 POCAHONTAS. 

If thou art lost to all the world, 
And all its- scorn at thee is hurled — 
If thou hast nothing left of life 
Beyond a loving, faithful wife : 
"Were all restored, all were not part 
Of what remains — all were not worth 
A grave to hide it in the earth. 

Kow from the rage of thy own breast, 
Restored to heaven — it all must flee : 
For if thou hadst a grave would hold 
Its fame, its glare, its lust, its gold, 
AU, should be buried deep of thee, 
Heaven half as high as stands thy crest. 

CII. 

Heaven late our home— if we may feel 
A touch of glory in our skin. 

Though it a frenzy o'er us steal. 
And leave a shadow last within, 
To prove immortal — mortal sin. 



POCAHONTAS. 145 

It must be so — yet life has much 
For love, and in the shadow, too, 

More to remember than to rae : 
So life intreat, though life be such. 
Be thine the charities of life, 
The love of mother, child, and wife ; 
And though thy love suspended be 
By death or thy infirmity; 
And though to-day, may treat the sky, 

As but a foil to raise the glow 
Of joy on cheek — ^in heart, in eye. 

And though to-morrow, looks thy woe 

As in the grave is buried low 
The light of heart and hearth for aye — 
Thy woe is sweeter than the joy 

Of life, without a shadow cast. 

To prove it must not always last. 
And by its length true peace destroy. 



146 POCAHONTAS. 

cni. 
Be thine an eye, and let it shine 

A planet to direct tliy feet, 
And all the wealth of sea and mine 

Were dust we trample down the street ; 
Breaks light enough from such a sun 

To quicken life within a clod, 
And warmth enough ere it be done, 

To nourish virtue back to God — 
Be thine for wassail, wine, and song, 

A blush^ a sigh, a tear, a smile, 
Joys too ecstatic to be long. 

Moments shall weary life beguile — 
Divine — some song by early love 

Made thrice familiar to thine ear, 
And earth beneath and heaven above, 

Shall both as one to thee appear. 
As thy first dream of love restored, — 
Life shall a thousand lives afford. 



POCAHONTAS. 147 

Blest — if some lip surrive to speak 

In accents half divine thy name, 
As thou no other joy shalt seek 

Fled — every dream of power and fame, 
And thy rapt soul in either ear, 
Forgetful of the shroud and hier, 
Death's call to life, thou wouldst not hear — 

Strong — with an arm, though it be weak, 
So it be fast about thy neck. 

Rapture on lip, on eye, and cheek : 
Then, if thy life must drift a wreck. 

She as full-rigged, shall catch some breeze. 
Perfumed of heaven — as nearer land. 

The hulk drives blindly through all seas, 
The helm, obedient to His hand. 
Who is the Pilot in command — 
Yet, all the while thine eyes shall steer 
By some fixed planet shining clear, 
By Love, once dear, now doubly dear — 
Her smile, sublimed into a tear. 



148 POCAHONTAS. 

HaYG tliou some hand to close tMne eyes, 

When thon hast looked the snn farewell, 
And all behind thon shalt despise, 

For joys the dead forbear to tell — 
Since thou shalt not have died alone, 
If with thy life love yields her own — 
Heaven — with some heart though it may "beat 

But half our threescore years and ten. 
So every pulse thine own shall greet : 

As life were drawn out longer then 
Than all the ages yet to be, 

And thou wert gladder for an hour, 

Than unloved — for eternity — 
Pulse, O how weak, and yet thy power 

Is strong, to break thy prison bars. 
Is strong, to scale thy prison wall, 

Is proud enough to flout the stars, 
And love at last the AU-in-AU. 
Yet ere thy flight — ^beat on as fast, 
As if each moment were the last. 



POCAHONTAS. 149 

.And every throb be bolder still 
To mould our fortunes to thy will-- 
And done— our hope to follow thee, 
Where thou our truer heaven shalt be. 

crv. 
But lo ! the Indian Bride— her eye 

Suffused with tears — ^her heart undone. 
Her cheeks their blushes veil or fly, 

As she had lost — now she has won. 

cv. 

Hadst thou a vision in thy sleep ? 

Or hast thou dreamt ill-boding dreams ? 
Thy smiles — thou dost not smile — dost weep, 
And some dark warning thou dost keep 
Hid from thyself, within thy breast, 
Now most unhappy, most caressed — 

And life, all radiant, darksome seems. 



150 POCAHONTAS. 

What Tvas tliat vision — wilt thou tell ? 
"What was that dream thy spirit fled 
Half frenzied, and thy heart forbore 
Its fleeting traces to restore, 
Glad— if were gone the fatal spell, 

And it no voice as from the dead, 
But some strange whisper in the ear 
We think we catch, but do not hear ? 

cvi. 
O Child — for shame ! — it was the Wind 

Plighting his fortunes to a star, 
Kow in the breeze, now in the storm. 

As if his Love could hear so far, 

Were all the elements at war. 
It was the night-bird far behind 

His mate, and waiting her reply, 
To draw him near her gentle form, 

To feast anew his tender eye, 



POCAHONTAS. 151 

As througli tae night these lovers fly, 

And sweetly woo till day draws nigh. 
It was the Thunder roaring loud 
His farewell to the shrinking cloud, 
And not for love, but all for scorn, 

Driving the horde of midnight home. 

That would the forest pathways roam — 

Lording it o'er the weeping air, 

While his dominion lasteth there. 
Ere from the Moon he flies forlorn — 
Or some belated beast of prey, 
Cried fear — to drive his fears away. 
Past lodge and hamlet fleet as air. 
Seeking the safety of his lair, 
And all but dead of sheer despair, 
Lest the day seize .him midway there. 
It was the Lightning, playing fear 

With storm and tempest howling past, 
Or blazing terror through the sky, 



152 POCAHONTAS. 

As tlie rift clouds before her fly, 
None bold enough to hold her fast — 
Or to our planet leaping clear, 
Died — dealing it a blow severe, 
And her last bellow stunned thine ear. 

cvii. 

O Night — were man as pure as thou, 
As little darkness on his brow. 
Who hails thy coming for his shame, 
Thine, were for him a prouder name. 
Than all the epithets of fame.— 
O could he tear his shadows off, 
And cast at hell, not heaven his scoff. 
Thou wouldst not blacken with a frown 
Above his God-forsaken town. 

And close thy many eyes, O Night, 
As vice comes reeling to thy sight. 
Still thou hast terrors for the weak, 
And ofttimes wilt a fool's delight, 



POCAHONTAS. 153 

As wlieii thy goblins take a freak, 

Some habitable world to seek, 

And there the spleen of phantoms wreak — 

Where dost thou hide them from the day. 

So we may never spleen repay ? 

So we may never catch the shape. 

That flits, thy mantle o'er it thrown. 
Know, could it mom or noon escape. 

And know if thine or if our own ? 

If it shall fly, or we alone ? 
What do thy sprites astride the wind, 

Berating stars — and moon, unshorn, 
For trailing seas of light behind 
And holding fast the urgent mom, 
Till they have galloped o'er the lea, 
Through mystic dances merrily; 
Wafted grim favors to the dead, 

As grinning ghastly past their sleep — 

And if a soul her flesh would keep. 

Must fly the path these phantoms tread? 
'J* 



154 POCAHONTAS. 

Are these, O Night, thy ministers? 
Or are they thine in spite of thee, 
The evil of the world to be, 

As its first pulse through Nature stirs ? 

CVIII. 

Now, from all graveyards glide the dead, 

To flit through silent rounds of fun, 
To fright the little ones to bed, 
To make the hoary coward run, 
Boastful of valor, to the sun — 
Ghosts who from pity wrest the right, 
To see their mortal homes by night. 
To gibber glibly, shade with shade. 
To boast new conquests Death has made : 
To plot new mischief for the eye 
Of such as are not ere they die, 
Bold, their own shadows not to fly. 
And so they enter where they will, 
By chamber door, o'er window sill, 



POCAHONTAS. 155 

And stand before us stricken — still — 

No nod, no sign, but staring eyes, 

To fling back on us our surprise — 

Till the moon fills tliem with aflSright, 

And they all vanish out of sight — 

Such knew thy heart's infirmity, 

O Child — and played their pranks on thee. 

cix. 
Or did the Nightmare, stranger still 

Than all the wonders of our sleep, 

Sit on thy soul and settle deep, 
Thy life obedient to its will ; 
And seizing fast thy struggling breath, 

O'erwhelm thee with that speechless fear, 
As if were felt the hand of death 

Touch both the failing eye and ear?— • 
Dreams then are terrors not to tell, 
And oh ! the heaven when breaks that spell. 
And heart beats free, and all is -well. 



156 POCAHONTAS. 

ex. 

It was the ever youthful Moon, 
Who will not wed the land or sea, 

For fear her charms shall fade so soon 
As she a virgin shall not be — 

And so she blushes through the night, 
And lets the Earth woo on and woo, 
And vow his love as heaven is true, 

While she resists him with her might ; 

He but too happy if the light 

Of her full eye pours on his sight — 

And she full-orbed was streaming o'er 
Thy half-closed eyelids with her beams. 

And what was only night before, 
Transfigured by their lustre seems — 

So she was half persuading thee, 

Thou didst see shapes thou didst not see. 



POCAHONTAS. 157 

CXI. 

And yet, for angels linger near, 

Or haste from yonder heavenly sphere, 

To guard the hearts to them most dear — 

The vision may have been divine, 

And by a nod, or look, or sign, 

Eevealed a secret wholly thine — 

A thing to keep, and not to tell: 

So, if thou hast it, keep it well. 

CXII. 

How many moons, O forest Child, 
Had waxed and waned since thou wert born 

And thy first love ? — The Muse had smiled 
O'er grief that had thy bosom torn, 
O'er love had left thy heart forlorn, 

But for the pallor of thy face. 

Lending a charm to native grace. 

Yet ever on thy cheek must trace 

A love no time shall e'er efface — 



158 POCAHONTAS. 

Love, time shall wither to a hue, 

Seen not as death — nor sorrow wholly- 
Seen, a true witness thou art true 
To love, though love be melancholy. 

cxni. 
Thine was the love all maidens feel, 

When the first waves of young desire 
So softly o'er the spirit steal, 

The senses drown ere they retire — 
And cheek, and lip, and forehead are 

Swift witnesses, though the soft sigh 
Be hushed, and lips a falsehood dare 

To prove the dawning passion by. 
She sleeps, and visions fill the night. 

She dreams, and now her heart is free 
To revel in the new delight, 

She hails by day so tremblingly — 
So unannounced a gentle guest 
Passes within a maiden's breast, 



POCAHONTAS. 169 

And safely there lies down to rest 

As if the mansion lie possessed : 

And if there be a passion there, 
Whose presence breaks the calm profound, 
The soft intruder breathes around — 

He waves that passion into air, 
And all her breast is holy ground, 
An4 she her bliss or bane has found. 

cxrv. 
O Muse, forbear, if thou hast wrung 
A tender secret from her breast — 
If thou wouldst sing a bride unblest, 
Whose lips the nuptial kiss have prest— 
Forget not, Muse, how in the West 
Rolled lake or river, down whose tide. 
No swift canoe had skill to glide. 
Of depth no Red Man's art might test : 
By mountains shielded from his thirst — 
Bounds its strong tide had never burst : 



160 POCAHOl^AS. 

And like a pearl within the deep, 
Or like a gem Md in the mine, 
So of its life it gave no sign. 

Safe in the hand of God asleep — 

TiU on a time the wilderness, 
Resounding with the lusty roar, ' 

Of monsters wounded in the chase, 

The hunter and his game drew near, 

Essayed its flood — to disappear: 

Life — had they lingered on the shore — 

Life that would leap within that tide, 

Has the great Manitou defied; 

Must vanish straitly into air. 

And leave no trace no shadow there— 

So when at eve not one returned 
Of all who leaped the gates of morn, 

To chase the elk, the moose, and deer — 

An aged warrior's spirit burned, 
His eye took fire, his lip took scorn. 

Night's lengthening hours he madly spurned, 



POCAHONTAS. 161 

And ere the sun, his hideous yell 
Denounced a wrath as dire as hell, 
On whom the Red Man's vengeance fell. 
Fleet as the lightning — with an eye 
Demanding of the earth and sky, 
The secret, both, his prayers deny, 
He flies — an arrow from the bow, 

Cleaving the air on eagle's wing. 
Had stopped so soon, or sped so slow, 

It had not reached him with its sting — 
Yet of his foemen not a trace, 

Ko sacrificial victims smoke. 
The Manitou still veils his face. 

And the old warrior's heart is broke, 

cxv. 
Anon he climbs a mountain's side. 
If on its top some sacred rite 
May yield the loved ones to his sight: 



162 POCAHONTAS. 

No spirit answers from tlie cloud, 
And now Ms woe is deep, not loud — 
When lo ! that river stretching wide, 
The close embracing mountains hide, 
And worn and weary on its brink, 
The warrior knelt, as if to drink. 
Yet ere he drank he felt a thrill 
To almost make his heart stand still ; 
And as he drank, he drank the more, 
And still is drinking on that shore, 
A youth he never felt before. 

CXVI. 

O silent River, white as snow. 
All thy unsounded depths aglow 
With light, no shimmer from the sun. 
Such light ere sunlight had begun. 
As shone throughout God's wide domain- 
Yet lest, O Muse, it seems profane 



POCAHONTAS. 163 

To touch a string of lieavcnly bliss, 
For such a shadowy -world as this — 
Sing, how no heavenly dew or rain 
'Baptized that river into life, 

Sing, how it nestled there for aye, 

That such as drink it never die. 

But strong with immortality, 

The storms and ills of life defy. 
And youth immortal crowns the strife. 
Of our few years of toil and pain. 

CXVII. 

Forget not, too, that sovereign skill 

To seize the ever-struggling breath. 
That would be fi'ee— to bind at will. 

The giant has no bowels— Death. 
On every tree some virtue grew, 
Whose healing power the Red Man knew. 
For insect's sting — for serpent's wound — 

For the wild fever of the brain — 



164 POCAHOOTTAS. 

For the mad riot of the blood — 
E'en for that low and hollow sound, 
As face to face with death he stood : 
And life leaped in his heart again. 

CXVIII. 

Perhaps in some soft Indian isle, 

Some shrinking plant or stately palm, 
Perfumed the soft embracing air, 

And shed around a dream-like calm ; 
And all who tasted of that tree, 
From unrequited love were free — 
And thou hast eaten well the while. 
Or fainting, thou hast knelt beside 
The lake or river's silver tide, 
And drinking long and drinking deep, 
Didst feel a slumber o'er thee creep, 
"Waking immortal from that sleep. 
Yet if no fountain e'er was found 
Within the borders of the West, 



POCAHONTAS. 165 

Wliereof who drank were healed and blest, 
And with eternal youth were crowned — 
So if the Red Man sought in vain 

A balm for such a wound as thine, 

Confessing only art divine, 
Restores the wounded heart again — 
Fly not thy native wilderness, 

For o'er thy head are genial skies. 

And every scene before thine eyes, 
Is like a mother's soft caress, 
To steep her child in happiness. 

cxrs. 
What wouldst thou ? Tremble now to seek 

Land by the sunrise — to forget 

Him, hadst thou never — never met, 
Thou hadst no secret not to speak. 
What wouldst thou ? Shudder to depart 
From nature, to be wrought by art / 



166 POCAHONTAS. 

Into a polished corner-stone, 

For a vast temple not thine own, 

All hail divine— but thee alone. 

cxx. 

As into ashes fairest fruit 
Oft turns, when Art prunes branch and root 
Of nature's planting, and refines — 
So modesty, so grace declines, 
Blossoming sweetly in the vale. 
Kissed only by the wooing gale, 
Fed by such dews as never fail. 
Seen only by their Maker's eyes, 
As night and mom soft odors rise 
In benediction to the skies — 
. ■ Transplanted to the mountain side. 
Or nourished where imperial pride 

To sterile nature grace has given — 
Sicken and die, or live to rue 
Departed strength, and beauty too, 



POCAHONTAS. 167 

And that soft charm to nature true, 
To art so false — it ever flies 
The horrid stare of vulgar eyes, 
Back— to the charming vales of heaven. 

cxxi. 

True life, is slumber quick with dreams. 
As the long day our feet have trod, 
Flits into shadow at his nod, 

Who flings the Orient back his beams. 

Life casts her shadows off— for skies 
Alive with songs — for skies so bright, 
The day were hooted out of night, 

Now she has entered paradise, 

In hut or palace soft asleep, 

On subtle wing true skies to sweep. 

Has to her day the tempest lowered ? 
Her flesh been quivering with a thrust 
Had well-nigh muttered, dust to dust ? 



168 POCAHONTAS. 

Grief her last hold nigh overpowered ? 
What dreams with tints beyond compare, 

Another heaven — another earth — 

Life not her travail— life her birth, 
Escaped from heaven — of look so rare — 
Or life within some shape of flame, 

Intreating life, yet on the shore 

To venture, wanting boat and oar, 
Across the flood — and burst the same— 
Has Life been gleaning every field 

Where she had joy like Ruth of yore, 

A joy departed evermore, 
Or fountain with its waters sealed ? 
Her dreams shall follow in its flight 

The fugitive, by land and sea — 

Or skirt along infinity," 
And on the Joy of Joy alight. 
Has she been plucking out a thorn, 

And felt a pang o'er all the wound. 

And both the pang and sorrow, bound 



POCAHONTAS. 163 

With hope, last dying, yet first born — 
A child forever, yet her age, 

Her innocence, and all her flower — 

Her strength — her boast — till life's last hour 
Shakes hands with heaven, and blots the page ? 
Ere long, in dreams a pleasing shape 

Adventures near, yet nearer still. 

Her senses tingle, and her will 
Is good — lean harvests to escape. 
And side by side with her True Love 
Glean the ungathered fields above. 
From dreams like these shalt thou awake, 

Queen of the forest — dreams are all, 

Are all, the fringe along the pall, 
Our hand from Death's own hand must take, 
Must bear for him, till he shall cast 
Its cloud across the bosom last. 



170 POCAHONTAS. 

CXXII. 

Now Ibe fresh breeze fans all the sea, 

And buoyant tides and -winning skies 
Invite the keel to liberty 

Of sail — and on the sea-craft flies — 
A league — a hundred leagues — yet more, 

The ship has sped across the deep. 
The skies may burst, the ocean roar, 

Thy life is sweet as life asleep — 
On — as thy home sinks where the sun 

Descends to kiss his Orient bride — 
Have, when the ship her course has run, 

For life, its hope— its flower and pride. 

cxxni. 

Graves of thy fathers — seen no more — 
Step from the ocean to the shore. 
Hail Art, ne'er seen of thee before, 
A world must thine to heaven restore. 



POCAHONTAS. l7l 

See the divinity of Art — 

Nature, her future in repose. 
See man as nature's counterpart, 

For whom she stands, by whom she rose, 
His minister, yet mother too, 

His last ambition— yet his grave — 
His only symbol of the True, 

Less than the Good, he last must crave. 
See for the forest, Art ascend. 

Entice the town to rear its head — 
Its vast metropolis extend, 

Its fame, a tale Of wonder spread. 
See Art as standing in the sun, 

Now quite celestial by the skies, 
Invite the Cross — ^her field has won, 

To skyward rise— still higher rise. 
See Power, the conflux of all art, 

Reducing nature by its nod — 
See Man, developed head and heart. 

Confess and yield his boast to God. 



Il2 POCAHONTAS. 

CXXIV. 

See Life o'er nature rise sublime, 

Rebuke her cliildhood in tlie past, 
Brand each new weakness as a crime, 
And press against the future, fast- 
As if the future held the key- 
Unlocks some treasure, yaster far, 
Than she has found by land or sea, 

Or snatched from peace or wrung from war- 
As if her strides already made, 

Were nothing to the stretch remains — 
As if all yet she has essayed 

Shall not be worth her future pains — 
Now quite divine, such hope is hers. 

As ampler seas to sail — as skies 
Of field, an angel's wing deters, 

Would yet the Infinite surprise — 
Kow quite divine — while there is room 
To add degrees yet short of God, 



POCAHONTAS. 173 

She would essay the last — though doom 
Thundered, at every step she trod — 
By nearness, challenging His rod, 
Aloof— from seraph, as from clod. 



cxxv. 

Hail I World, where Eden bloomed and smiled, 
And man beheld it undefiled, 

Tasted the fruit of every tree, 
Breathed in the odor of its flowers. 
Sank to repose within its bowers. 
Waited her coming passing fair, 
A blossom sweeter and more rare, 
Than all the garden in its spring. 

Ere tasting mortal agony, 
And dying of the Serpent^s sting — 

World so familiar with thy God, 
Who walked the Garden eve and mom, 

Saluted Adam by his name 



174 POCAHONTAS. 

As man — tliougli not of woman bom, 
Ere yet lie shrank beMncl his shame, 

And o'er the garden grew the thorn. 

World blest of Him who later trod 
Thy hills and valleys, worn and faint, 

Scourged by His holy Father's rod, 
To raise a sinner to a saint — 

Is all forgotten like a dream, 
Is all thy soil become profane. 
Till Jesus shall descend again. 

And make His footprints glorious seem ? 

Dust like our dead is all the earth. 
Awaiting resurrection mom, 
When out of dust, as if rebom. 

She shall be heaven as at her birth. 

cxxvi. 
If but the Orient had His smile, 
And blossomed sweet beneath His tread, 



POCAHONTAS. 175 

Who left man upright — found him vile, 
Has not His smile a radiance shed, 

Have not His feet, as on He trod, 
Suffused with glory all the East ? 

"World, redolent of Christ and God, 
World, by an emptied Heaven, increased I 

CXXVII. 

Wife of the Pale Face— hast thou seen 

The marvels of the wave, in vain? 
Marked, now, the Ocean smile serene — 

And, now, the tempest burst, amain? 
Heard, too, the petrel's lonely screech, 

As the mad waters smote his breast, 
Ere, to mid-heaven, no eye may reach, 

He swept — ^the vantage on his crest? 
Marked the sea travail — and the sky 

Smile, as the fruitful mother slept — 
While the good ship, thy fears would fly, 

Her course, by helm and needle, kept? 



176 POCAHONTAS. 

CXXYIII. 

Now greet the sunrise, and forget 

Thy fathers by the setting sun ; 
Thy life is all before thee yet, 

Thy summer is but just begun, 
Though death has half his conquest won — 

O, rouse thee— rouse thee, and be strong, 
-^ Life at its full glows not so long, 
"We court the hour it shall be done. 
Life, be it cumbrous as the load 

Atlas upon his shoulders bore, 

Our cry is not for less, but niore, 
As reeling on along the road, 
Refreshed at every well we meet, 

Glad, if a wretch — a wretch shall greet — 
Glad, if the mire yield to our feet, 

Tom by the roughness of the way, 
Glad, if our famine find a crumb, 

Or from the dog may snatch his bone, 



POCAHONTAS. 177 

Our lips, witli sorrow stricken dumb, 

Heart, hope, all flecl, but God alone, 
And strength to lift the hand, and pray, 
Yet spare us, God — ^yet one more day. 



CXXIX. 

Cheer — the sun shines, and though its light 

Fall on the grave, it wakes the flower, 
To bloom a blessing to the sight. 
To breathe sweet odors to the night — 

Life without cheer must life devour — 
Sing, though ■ the choir of heaven be still. 
So life shall borrow life, until 
She breaks away from both our hands, 
And late before her Maker stands. 
Thou, too, art strong, and man is weak — 

Thy strength provokes his courage on, 
And when thy lips forbear to speak, 

Thy smile restores his courage gone, 

8* 



178 POCAHONTAS. 

woman — ^weak, yet strong to bear, 

And in thy weakness like a tower, 
Breasting all storms that shake the air. 

And stoutest when they darkest lower — 
Man yields to fortune like the reed, 

Swept of the gale, and is no more — 
So, if his fears ill omens read 

Charged with disasters yet in store. 
He shrinks behind his fears so small. 
He dies, and thus prevents his fall — 
But woman never seeks the steel 

To cut the knot of life — ^but lives, 
And from God's hand the sting must feel, 

That goads to heaven His fugitives. 
If she is bolder than her fears, 

She bears no weapon in her hand. 
Lays every shaft by smiles or tears, 

And last — on the won field shall stand. 
And challenge death to speed his dart — 

And when it finds indeed lier life. 



f POCAHONTAS. 179 

Shall bloom immortal from her heart, 
The loye of mother, child, and wife. 

cxxx. 

Why dost thou quail, since thou art she 3 

Seek for thine own the brightest star, 
And catch the cheer it wafts to thee, 

Catch on thy face its glow afar — 
Let thine eyes sparkle with its light. 

Thy heart ring out its heavenly air. 
And like that star when aU is night — 

Blaze o'er the darkness everywhere. 

cxxxi. 
Dead, is the handsome chevalier — 
So was it whispered in thine ear, 

When to the Pale Face thou wert wed; 
Yet oft a vision of the night 
Revealed him living to thy sight, 



180 POCAHONTAS. 

And thou hast from that yision fled. 

Dead — to thy fears thy lips have said, 
Yet thy heart kept him living there 

Against the love of wife — with sigh 
And tear— cheek, lip, and forehead are 

Memorial tablets to the eye, 

Thy love for him thou couldst not fly — 

If dead — he still is ever nigh — 
When lo ! him living and not dead, 
Thy spirit faints, or seems as fled — 
And as ye gaze, eyes fixed on eyes, 
Thy heart o'er all thy forehead flies, 
And at the fountain of thy life. 
Beats low the waning love of wife. 
Beats strong the pulse of first desire: 

All worthy life crowds in that hour. 

All death may challenge owns its power, 
And thou art hastening to expire. 



POCAHONTAS. 181 

CXXXII. 

Thy breath be perfume to the air, 

Let not its fire forsake thine eye, 
Thy lips be gently touched of prayer, 

And life take passage in a sigh— 
And with the cypress on thy grave, 

We'll plant a rose as white as snow: 
There, let them both forever wave, 

And the rose ever whiter grow. 

cxxxni. 
Poor Life— what hast thou, to detain ua 

Yet longer at thy meagre feast ? 
Still as we rise thou dost constrain us, 

Urge tliy best fare is tasted least — 
So we are gorged, are sated longer. 

We drain thy wine down to its lees, 
And rise so weak, instead of stronger. 

We tremble, sinking to our knees — 

And pray for heaven, our true heart's ease. 



182 POCAHONTAS. 

cxxxrv. 

Life, silent by the raging sea, 
Escaped — she knew not whither—fled^ 

Escaping less, Infinity, 

Than waves, for which she had no dread- 

If sun or ocean, each so vast 

* 
A symbol, be so less than God— 

What of the shadow earthward cast 

Not of Himself, but by His rod ? 
Still Faith returned her — had its shade 

Blackened a hemisphere to hell. 
What fear, had thy own peace been made ? 

Thou, bold to stand, whate'er befel 
Planet and star, careering wild 

Athwart the flaming face of heaven — 
Thy hair unhurt, as wrath had smiled 

On one, His cross to Christ had given. 



POCAHONTAS. 183 

CXXXV. 

Such, all of life ? were more still less ? 

Or were that life, without a cloud ? 
That joy — unbroken happiness ? 

Or must the light the shadow crowd 
Across the dial of our life — 

Life just exultant fall as dead, 
Hope closed with hope, wind up the strife, 

Kot on the field — but skyward fled. 
To wage fresh battle at the grave, 

Last stand of earth for heaven— that spoil, 
That stake, all war-worn heroes crave, 

Or lost— a grave on sacred soil ? 

CXXXVT. 

O valiant, handsome chevalier, 
Was thine the splendor of the sun ? 
So many hearts thy beauty won — 

How didst thou conquer ? by despair ? 



184 POCAHONTAS. 

So many times thy lusty cheer 
Of triumph rolled along the air, 
Or hadst thou strength the sun doth wield, 
A strength to -which all strength must yield ? 
Oh ! charm, or glance, or voice, or spell, 
Falling so fatal, where it fell, 
That such as yielded, could not tell 
Why they must love — aye, love too well, 
The genial, brilliant chevalier- 
She had not loved — or not so dear. 



cxxxvn. 
Grave, thou hadst kept her secret well, 

If Death were not a truth-revealer — 
And what her lips had shrunk to tell, 

Death, as he bade the grave conceal her, 
"Without a word— without a sign, 
Or look, or token we divine, 



POCAHOIO'AS. 185 

But silent as he is forever, 

So sTiadowy — sucli see him never, 

As feel his presence in a chill 

Creep to the heart, and all is still — 

Divulged the secret she had kept 

So well, it with her dust had slept, 
And Pocahontas, like her race 
Had been — ^had left a fleeting trace, 

And her true heart had broke, unwept. 



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